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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare by
+D. Nichol Smith
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare
+
+Author: D. Nichol Smith
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2009 [Ebook #30227]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO 8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE***
+
+
+
+
+
+                            Eighteenth Century
+
+                          Essays on Shakespeare
+
+                                Edited by
+
+                          D. Nichol Smith, M.A.
+
+                                 Glasgow
+
+                         James MacLehose and Sons
+
+                       Publishers to the University
+
+                                   1903
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Preface.
+Introduction. Shakespearian Criticism in the Eighteenth Century.
+Nicholas Rowe: Some Account of the Life &c. of Mr. William Shakespear.
+1709.
+John Dennis: On the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare. 1711.
+Alexander Pope: Preface to Edition of Shakespeare. 1725.
+Lewis Theobald: Preface to Edition of Shakespeare. 1733.
+Sir Thomas Hanmer: Preface to Edition of Shakespeare. 1744.
+William Warburton: Preface to Edition of Shakespeare. 1747.
+Samuel Johnson: Preface to Edition of Shakespeare. 1765.
+Richard Farmer: An Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare: Addressed to
+Joseph Cradock, Esq. 1767.
+Maurice Morgann: An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff.
+1777.
+Notes.
+   Nicholas Rowe.
+   John Dennis.
+   Alexander Pope.
+   Lewis Theobald.
+   Sir Thomas Hanmer.
+   William Warburton.
+   Samuel Johnson.
+   Richard Farmer.
+   Maurice Morgann.
+Index.
+Footnotes
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The purpose of this book is to give an account of Shakespeare's reputation
+during the eighteenth century, and to suggest that there are grounds for
+reconsidering the common opinion that the century did not give him his
+due. The nine Essays or Prefaces here reprinted may claim to represent the
+chief phases of Shakespearian study from the days of Dryden to those of
+Coleridge. It is one of the evils following in the train of the romantic
+revival that the judgments of the older school have been discredited or
+forgotten. The present volume shows that the eighteenth century knew many
+things which the nineteenth has rediscovered for itself.
+
+It is at least eighty years since most of these essays were reprinted.
+Rowe's _Account of Shakespeare_ is given in its original and complete form
+for the first time, it is believed, since 1714; what was printed in the
+early Variorum editions, and previously in almost every edition since
+1725, was Pope's version of Rowe's _Account_. Dennis's Essay has not
+appeared since the author republished it in 1721. In all cases the texts
+have been collated with the originals; and the more important changes in
+the editions published in the lifetime of the author are indicated in the
+Introduction or Notes.
+
+The Introduction has been planned to show the main lines in the
+development of Shakespeare's reputation, and to prove that the new
+criticism, which is said to begin with Coleridge, takes its rise as early
+as the third quarter of the eighteenth century. On the question of
+Theobald's qualifications as an editor, it would appear that we must
+subscribe to the deliberate verdict of Johnson. We require strong evidence
+before we may disregard contemporary opinion, and in Theobald's case there
+is abundant evidence to confirm Johnson's view. Johnson's own edition, on
+the other hand, has not received justice during the last century.
+
+It is a pleasure to the Editor to record his obligations to Professor
+Raleigh, Mr. Gregory Smith, and Mr. J. H. Lobban.
+
+EDINBURGH, _October_, 1903.
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION. SHAKESPEARIAN CRITICISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+The early nineteenth century was too readily convinced by Coleridge and
+Hazlitt that they were the first to recognise and to explain the greatness
+of Shakespeare. If amends have recently been made to the literary ideals
+of Pope and Johnson, the reaction has not yet extended to Shakespearian
+criticism. Are we not still inclined to hold the verdicts of Hume and
+Chesterfield as representative of eighteenth-century opinion, and to find
+proof of a lack of appreciation in the editorial travesties of the
+playhouse? To this century, as much as to the nineteenth, Shakespeare was
+the glory of English letters. So Pope and Johnson had stated in
+unequivocal language, which should not have been forgotten. "He is not so
+much an imitator as an instrument of Nature," said Pope, "and 'tis not so
+just to say that he speaks from her as that she speaks through him"; and
+Johnson declared that "the stream of time, which is continually washing
+the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the
+adamant of Shakespeare." But Pope and Johnson had ventured to point out,
+in the honesty of their criticism, that Shakespeare was not free from
+faults; and it was this which the nineteenth century chose to remark.
+Johnson's Preface in particular was remembered only to be despised. It is
+not rash to say that at the present time the majority of those who chance
+to speak of it pronounce it a discreditable performance.
+
+This false attitude to the eighteenth century had its nemesis in the
+belief that we were awakened by foreigners to the greatness of
+Shakespeare. Even one so eminently sane as Hazlitt lent support to this
+opinion. "We will confess," says the Preface to the _Characters of
+Shakespeare's Plays_, "that some little jealousy of the character of the
+national understanding was not without its share in producing the
+following undertaking, for we were piqued that it should be reserved for a
+foreign critic to give reasons for the faith which we English have in
+Shakespeare"; and the whole Preface resolves itself, however reluctantly,
+into praise of Schlegel and censure of Johnson. When a thorough Englishman
+writes thus, it is not surprising that Germany should have claimed to be
+the first to give Shakespeare his true place. The heresy has been exposed;
+but even the slightest investigation of eighteenth-century opinion, or the
+mere recollection of what Dryden had said, should have prevented its rise.
+Though Hazlitt took upon himself the defence of the national intelligence,
+he incorporated in his Preface a long passage from Schlegel, because, in
+his opinion, no English critic had shown like enthusiasm or philosophical
+acuteness. We cannot regret the delusion if we owe to it the _Characters
+of Shakespeare's Plays_, but his patriotic task would have been easier,
+and might even have appeared unnecessary, had he known that many of
+Schlegel's acute and enthusiastic observations had been anticipated at
+home.
+
+Even those who are willing to give the eighteenth century its due have not
+recognised how it appreciated Shakespeare. At no time in this century was
+he not popular. The author of _Esmond_ tells us that Shakespeare was quite
+out of fashion until Steele brought him back into the mode.(1) Theatrical
+records would alone be sufficient to show that the ascription of this
+honour to Steele is an injustice to his contemporaries. In the year that
+the _Tatler_ was begun, Rowe brought out his edition of the "best of our
+poets"; and a reissue was called for five years later. It is said by
+Johnson(2) that Pope's edition drew the public attention to Shakespeare's
+works, which, though often mentioned, had been little read. Henceforward
+there was certainly an increase in the number of critical investigations,
+but if Shakespeare had been little read, how are we to explain the
+coffee-house discussions of which we seem to catch echoes in the
+periodical literature? The allusions in the _Spectator_, or the essays in
+the _Censor_, must have been addressed to a public which knew him. Dennis,
+who "read him over and over and still remained unsatiated," tells how he
+was accused, by blind admirers of the poet, of lack of veneration, because
+he had ventured to criticise, and how he had appealed from a private
+discussion to the judgment of the public. "Above all I am pleased," says
+the _Guardian_, "in observing that the Tragedies of Shakespeare, which in
+my youthful days have so frequently filled my eyes with tears, hold their
+rank still, and are the great support of our theatre."(3) Theobald could
+say that "this author is grown so universal a book that there are very few
+studies or collections of books, though small, amongst which it does not
+hold a place"; and he could add that "there is scarce a poet that our
+English tongue boasts of who is more the subject of the Ladies'
+reading."(4) It would be difficult to explain away these statements. The
+critical interest in Shakespeare occasioned by Pope's edition may have
+increased the knowledge of him, but he had been regularly cited, long
+before Pope's day, as England's representative genius. To argue that he
+had ever been out of favour we must rely on later statements, and they are
+presumably less trustworthy than those which are contemporary. Lyttelton
+remarked that a veneration for Shakespeare seems to be a part of the
+national religion, and the only part in which even men of sense are
+fanatics;(5) and Gibbon spoke of the "idolatry for the gigantic genius of
+Shakespeare, which is inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of an
+Englishman."(6) The present volume will show how the eighteenth century
+could almost lose itself in panegyric of Shakespeare. The evidence is so
+overwhelming that it is hard to understand how the century's respect for
+Shakespeare was ever doubted. When Tom Jones took Partridge to the gallery
+of Drury Lane, the play was _Hamlet_. The fashionable topics on which Mr.
+Thornhill's friends from town would talk, to the embarrassment of the
+Primroses and the Flamboroughs, were "pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and
+the musical glasses." The greatest poet of the century played a leading
+part in erecting the statue in the Poets' Corner. And it was an
+eighteenth-century actor who instituted the Stratford celebrations.
+
+During the entire century Shakespeare dominated the stage. He was more to
+the actor then, and more familiar to the theatre-goer, than he is now. It
+is true that from Betterton's days to Garrick's, and later, his plays were
+commonly acted from mangled versions. But these versions were of two
+distinct types. The one respected the rules of the classical drama, the
+other indulged the license of pantomime. The one was the labour of the
+pedant theorist, the other was rather the improvisation of the theatre
+manager. And if the former were truly representative of the taste of the
+century, as has sometimes been implied, it has to be explained how they
+were not so popular as the latter. "Our taste has gone back a whole
+century," says the strolling player in the _Vicar of Wakefield_,(7)
+"Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and all the plays of Shakespeare are the only
+things that go down." The whole passage is a satire on Garrick(8) and a
+gibe at Drury Lane: "The public go only to be amused, and find themselves
+happy when they can enjoy a pantomime under the sanction of Jonson's or
+Shakespeare's name." But, whatever was done with Shakespeare's plays, they
+were the very life of the theatre. When we remember also the number of
+editions which were published, and the controversies to which they gave
+rise, as well as the fact that the two literary dictators were among his
+editors, we are prompted to ask, What century has felt the influence of
+Shakespeare more than the eighteenth?
+
+                  -------------------------------------
+
+The century's interest in Shakespeare shows itself in four main phases.
+The first deals with his neglect of the so-called rules of the drama; the
+second determines what was the extent of his learning; the third considers
+the treatment of his text; and the fourth, more purely aesthetic, shows
+his value as a delineator of character. The following remarks take these
+questions in order; and a concluding section gives an account of the
+individual essays here reprinted. Though the phases are closely connected
+and overlap to some extent, the order in which they are here treated
+accords in the main with their chronological sequence.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+Dryden is the father of Shakespearian criticism. Though he disguised his
+veneration at times, he expressed his true faith when he wrote,
+deliberately, the fervent estimate in the _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_.
+Johnson saw that Pope had expanded it, and his own experience made him say
+that the editors and admirers of Shakespeare, in all their emulation of
+reverence, had not done much more than diffuse and paraphrase this
+"epitome of excellence." But concurrently on to Johnson's time we can
+trace the influence of Thomas Rymer, who, in his _Short View of Tragedy_,
+had championed the classical drama, and had gone as far in abuse as his
+greater contemporary had gone in praise. The authority which each exerted
+is well illustrated by Rowe's _Account of Shakespeare_. Rowe is of the
+party of Dryden, but he cannot refrain from replying to Rymer, though he
+has resolved to enter into no critical controversy. He says he will not
+inquire into the justness of Rymer's remarks, and yet he replies to him in
+two passages. That these were silently omitted by Pope when he included
+the _Account of Shakespeare_ in his own edition in 1725 does not mean that
+Rymer was already being forgotten. We know from other sources that Pope
+rated his abilities very highly. But the condensed form in which the
+_Account_ was regularly reprinted does not convey so plainly as the
+original the influence of the rival schools at the beginning of the
+eighteenth century. In addition to the passages on Rymer, Pope omitted
+several valuable allusions to Dryden. The influence of Dryden, however, is
+plain enough. He seems to have been ever present to Rowe, suggesting ideas
+to be accepted or refuted. Rowe must have been indebted to the
+conversation of Dryden as well as to the researches of Betterton.
+
+Rowe's own dramatic work is an interesting comment on the critical
+portions of his _Account of Shakespeare_. When he professes to have taken
+Shakespeare as his model,(9) which shows that his editorial work had
+taught him the trick of an occasional line contrary to the normal rules of
+blank verse. Notwithstanding a brave prologue, he was not able to shake
+himself free from the rules, which tightened their grip on English tragedy
+till they choked it. His regard for Shakespeare did not give him courage
+for the addition of a comic element or an underplot. He must obey the
+"hampering critics," though his avowed model had ignored them.
+Accordingly, in his more deliberate prose criticism we find, amid his
+veneration of Shakespeare, his regard for the rules of the classical
+drama. The faults of Shakespeare, we read, were not so much his own as
+those of his time, for "tragi-comedy was the common mistake of that age,"
+and there was as yet no definite knowledge of how a play should be
+constructed.
+
+The burden of Rowe's criticism is that "strength and nature made amends
+for art." The line might serve as the text of many of the early
+appreciations of Shakespeare. Though the critics all resented Rymer's
+treatment of the poet, some of them stood by his doctrines. They might
+appease this resentment by protesting against his manners or refuting his
+plea for a dramatic chorus; but on the whole they recognised the claims of
+the classical models. The more the dramatic fervour failed, the more the
+professed critics counselled observance of the rules. In 1702 Farquhar had
+pleaded for the freedom of the English stage in his _Discourse upon
+Comedy_, but his arguments were unavailing. The duller men found it easier
+to support the rigid doctrines, which had been fully expounded by the
+French critics. The seventh or supplementary volume of Rowe's edition of
+Shakespeare was introduced by Charles Gildon's _Essay on the Art, Rise,
+and Progress of the Stage in Greece, Rome, and __ England_, which, as the
+title shows, was a laboured exposition of the classical doctrines. Gildon
+had begun as an enemy of Rymer. In 1694 he had published _Some Reflections
+on Mr. Rymer's Short View of Tragedy and an Attempt at a Vindication of
+Shakespeare_. Therein he had spoken of "noble irregularity," and censured
+the "graver pedants" of the age. By 1710 he is a grave pedant himself. In
+1694 he had said that Rymer had scarce produced one criticism that was not
+borrowed from the French writers; in 1710 the remark is now applicable to
+its author. Gildon's further descent as a critic is evident eight years
+later in his _Complete Art of Poetry_. He is now a slave to the French
+doctrine of the rules. He confesses himself the less ready to pardon the
+"monstrous absurdities" of Shakespeare, as one or two plays, such as the
+_Tempest_, are "very near a regularity." Yet he acknowledges that
+Shakespeare abounds in beauties, and he makes some reparation by including
+a long list of his finer passages. Gildon was a man whose ideas took their
+colour from his surroundings. In the days of his acquaintanceship with
+Dryden he appreciated Shakespeare more heartily than when he was left to
+the friendship of Dennis or the favours of the Duke of Buckinghamshire.
+His _Art of Poetry_ is a dishonest compilation, which owes what value it
+has to the sprinkling of contemporary allusions. It even incorporates,
+without any acknowledgment, long passages from Sidney's _Apologie_. We
+should be tempted to believe that Gildon merely put his name to a
+hack-work collection, were it not that there is a gradual deterioration in
+his criticism.
+
+John Dennis also replied to Rymer's _Short View_, and was classed
+afterwards as one of Rymer's disciples. In his _Impartial Critick_ (1693)
+he endeavoured to show that the methods of the ancient Greek tragedy were
+not all suitable to the modern English theatre. To introduce a chorus, as
+Rymer had recommended, or to expel love from the stage, would, he argued,
+only ruin the English drama. But his belief in the classical rules made
+him turn the _Merry Wives_ into the _Comical Gallant_. As he found in the
+original three actions, each independent of the other, he had set himself
+to make the whole "depend on one common centre." In the Dedication to the
+letters _On the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare_ we read that
+Aristotle, "who may be call'd the Legislator of Parnassus, wrote the laws
+of tragedy so exactly and so truly in reason and nature that succeeding
+criticks have writ justly and reasonably upon that art no farther than
+they have adhered to their great master's notions." But at the very
+beginning of the letters themselves he says that "Shakespeare was one of
+the greatest geniuses that the world e'er saw." Notwithstanding his
+pronounced classical taste, his sense of the greatness of Shakespeare is
+as strong as Rowe's, and much stronger than Gildon's. His writings prove
+him a man of competent scholarship, who had thought out his literary
+doctrines for himself, and could admire beauty in other than classical
+garb. The result is that at many points his opinions are at marked
+variance with those of Rymer, for whom, however, he had much respect.
+Rymer, for instance, had said that Shakespeare's genius lay in comedy, but
+the main contention of Dennis's letters is that he had an unequalled gift
+for tragedy. As a critic Dennis is greatly superior to Rymer and his
+disciples. The ancients guided his taste without blinding him to modern
+excellence.
+
+Even Lewis Theobald, whom some would consider Shakespeare's greatest
+friend in this century, believed in the rules. He complied with the taste
+of the town when he wrote pantomimes, but he was a sterner man when he
+posed as a critic. He would then speak of the "general absurdities of
+Shakespeare," and the "errors" in the structure of his plays. He passed
+this criticism both in his edition of Shakespeare and in the early
+articles in the _Censor_ on _King Lear_, which are also of considerable
+historical interest as being the first essays devoted exclusively to an
+examination of a single Shakespearian play. His complacent belief in the
+rules prompted him to correct _Richard II._ "The many scattered beauties
+which I have long admired," he says naïvely in the Preface, "induced me to
+think they would have stronger charms if they were interwoven in a regular
+Fable." No less confident is a note on _Love's Labours Lost_: "Besides the
+exact regularity of the rules of art, which the author has happened to
+preserve in some few of his pieces, this is demonstration, I think, that
+though he has more frequently transgressed the unity of Time by cramming
+years into the compass of a play, yet he knew the absurdity of so doing,
+and was not unacquainted with the rule to the contrary."(10) Theobald was
+a critic of the same type as Gildon. Each had profound respect for what he
+took to be the accredited doctrines. If on certain points Theobald's ideas
+were liable to change, the explanation is that he was amenable to the
+opinions of others. We do not find in Theobald's criticism the courage of
+originality.
+
+There is little about the rules in Pope's Preface. That Pope respected
+them cannot be doubted, else he would not have spoken so well of Rymer,
+and in the critical notes added to his Homer we should not hear so much of
+Le Bossu's treatise on the Epic.(11) But Pope was a discreet man, who knew
+when to be silent. He regarded it as a misfortune that Shakespeare was not
+so circumstanced as to be able to write on the model of the ancients, but,
+unlike the pedant theorists, he refused to judge Shakespeare by the rules
+of a foreign drama. Much the same is to be said of Addison. His belief in
+the rules appears in his _Cato_. His over-rated criticism of _Paradise
+Lost_ is little more than a laboured application of the system of Le
+Bossu. But in the _Spectator_ he too urges that Shakespeare is not to be
+judged according to the rules. "Our critics do not seem sensible," he
+writes, "that there is more beauty in the works of a great genius who is
+ignorant of the rules of art than in those of a little genius who knows
+and observes them. Our inimitable Shakespeare is a stumbling-block to the
+whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would not rather read one of his
+plays where there is not a single rule of the stage observed, than any
+production of a modern critic where there is not one of them
+violated?"(12) The rigid critics continued to find fault with the
+structure of Shakespeare's plays. In the articles in the _Adventurer_ on
+the _Tempest_ and _King Lear_, Joseph Warton repeats the standard
+objection to tragi-comedy and underplots. In the _Biographia Britannica_
+we still find it stated that Shakespeare set himself to please the
+populace, and that the people "had no notion of the rules of writing, or
+the model of the Ancients." But one whose tastes were classical, both by
+nature and by training, had been thinking out the matter for himself. It
+was only after long reflection, and with much hesitation, that Johnson had
+disavowed what had almost come to be considered the very substance of the
+classical faith. In his _Irene_ he had bowed to the rules; he had,
+however, begun to suspect them by the time he wrote the _Rambler_, and in
+the Preface to his edition of Shakespeare suspicion has become conviction.
+His sturdy common sense and independence of judgment led him to anticipate
+much of what has been supposed to be the discovery of the romantic school.
+His Preface has received scant justice. There is no more convincing
+criticism of the neo-classical doctrines.(13)
+
+Henceforward we hear less about the rules. Johnson had performed a great
+service for that class of critics whose deference to learned opinion kept
+them from saying fully what they felt. The lesser men had not been at
+their ease when they referred to Shakespeare. We see their difficulty in
+the Latin lectures of Joseph Trapp, the first Professor of Poetry at
+Oxford, as well as in the Grub Street _Essay upon English Tragedy_ (1747)
+by William Guthrie. They admire his genius, but they persist in regretting
+that his plays are not properly constructed. Little importance attaches to
+Mrs. Montagu's _Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare_
+(1769).(14) It was only a well-meaning but shallow reply to Voltaire,(15)
+and a reply was unnecessary. Johnson had already vindicated the national
+pride in Shakespeare. That his views soon became the commonplaces of those
+critics who strike the average of current opinion, is shown by such a work
+as William Cooke's _Elements of Dramatic Criticism_ (1775). But traces of
+the school of Rymer are still to be found, and nowhere more strongly than
+in the anonymous _Cursory Remarks on Tragedy_ (1774). In this little
+volume of essays the dramatic rules are defended against the criticism of
+Johnson by a lame repetition of the arguments which Johnson had
+overthrown. Even Pope is said to have let his partiality get the better of
+his usual justice and candour when he claimed that Shakespeare was not to
+be judged by what were called the rules of Aristotle. There are laws, this
+belated critic urges, which bind each individual as a citizen of the
+world; and once again we read that the rules of the classical drama are in
+accordance with human reason. This book is the last direct descendant of
+Rymer's _Short View_. The ancestral trait appears in the question whether
+Shakespeare was in general even a good tragic writer. But it is a
+degenerate descendant. If it has learned good manners, it is unoriginal
+and dull; and it is so negligible that it has apparently not been thought
+worth while to settle the question of its authorship.(16)
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The discussion on Shakespeare's attitude to the dramatic rules was closely
+connected with the long controversy on the extent of his learning. The
+question naturally suggested itself how far his dramatic method was due to
+his ignorance of the classics. Did he know the rules and ignore them, or
+did he write with no knowledge of the Greek and Roman models? Whichever
+view the critics adopted, one and all felt they were arguing for the
+honour of Shakespeare. If some would prove for his greater glory that
+parallel passages were due to direct borrowing, others held it was more to
+his credit to have known nothing of the classics and to have equalled or
+surpassed them by the mere force of unassisted genius.
+
+The controversy proper begins with Rowe's _Account of Shakespeare_. On
+this subject, as on others, Rowe expresses the tradition of the
+seventeenth century. His view is the same as Dryden's, and Dryden had
+accepted Jonson's statement that Shakespeare had "small Latin and less
+Greek." Rowe believes that his acquaintance with Latin authors was such as
+he might have gained at school: he could remember tags of Horace or
+Mantuan, but was unable to read Plautus in the original. The plea that
+comparative ignorance of the classics may not have been a disadvantage, as
+it perhaps prevented the sacrifice of fancy to correctness, prompted a
+reply by Gildon in his _Essay on the Stage_, where the argument is based
+partly on the belief that Shakespeare had read Ovid and Plautus and had
+thereby neither spoiled his fancy nor confined his genius. The question
+was probably at this time a common topic of discussion. Dennis's abler
+remarks were suggested, as he tells us, by conversation in which he found
+himself opposed to the prevalent opinion. He is more pronounced in his
+views than Rowe had been. His main argument is that as Shakespeare is
+deficient in the "poetical art" he could not but have been ignorant of the
+classics, for, had he known them, he could not have failed to profit by
+them. Dennis is stirred even to treat the question as one affecting the
+national honour. "He who allows," he says, "that Shakespeare had learning
+and a familiar acquaintance with the Ancients, ought to be looked upon as
+a detractor from his extraordinary merit and from the glory of Great
+Britain."
+
+The prominence of the controversy forced Pope to refer to it in his
+Preface, but he had apparently little interest in it. Every statement he
+makes is carefully guarded: there are translations from Ovid, he says,
+among the poems which _pass for_ Shakespeare's; he will not pretend to say
+in what language Shakespeare read the Greek authors; Shakespeare _appears_
+to have been conversant in Plautus. He is glad of the opportunity to reply
+to Dennis's criticism of _Coriolanus_ and _Julius Caesar_, but though he
+praises the truthful representation of the Roman spirit and manners, he
+discreetly refuses to say how Shakespeare came to know of them. As he had
+not thought out the matter for himself, he feared to tread where the
+lesser men rushed in. But though he records the evidence brought forward
+by those who believed in Shakespeare's knowledge of the Ancients, he does
+not fail to convey the impression that he belongs to the other party. And,
+indeed, in another passage of the Preface he says with definiteness,
+inconsistent with his other statements, that Shakespeare was "without
+assistance or advice from the learned, as without the advantage of
+education or acquaintance among them, without that knowledge of the best
+models, the Ancients, to inspire him with an emulation of them."
+
+During the fifty years between Pope's Preface and Johnson's, the
+controversy continued intermittently without either party gaining ground.
+In the Preface to the supplementary volume to Pope's edition--which is a
+reprint of Gildon's supplementary volume to Rowe's--Sewell declared he
+found evident marks through all Shakespeare's writings of knowledge of the
+Latin tongue. Theobald, who was bound to go astray when he ventured beyond
+the collation of texts, was ready to believe that similarity of idea in
+Shakespeare and the classics was due to direct borrowing. He had, however,
+the friendly advice of Warburton to make him beware of the secret
+satisfaction of pointing out a classical original. In its earlier form his
+very unequal Preface had contained the acute observation that the texture
+of Shakespeare's phrases indicated better than his vocabulary the extent
+of his knowledge of Latin. The style was submitted as "the truest
+criterion to determine this long agitated question," and the conclusion
+was implied that Shakespeare could not have been familiar with the
+classics. But this interesting passage was omitted in the second edition,
+perhaps because it was inconsistent with a less decided utterance
+elsewhere in the Preface, but more probably because it had been supplied
+by Warburton. In his earlier days, before he had met Warburton, he had
+been emphatic. In the Preface to his version of _Richard II._ he had tried
+to do Shakespeare "some justice upon the points of his learning and
+acquaintance with the Ancients." He had said that _Timon of Athens_ and
+_Troilus and Cressida_ left it without dispute or exception that
+Shakespeare was no inconsiderable master of the Greek story; he dared be
+positive that the latter play was founded directly upon Homer; he held
+that Shakespeare must have known Aeschylus, Lucian, and Plutarch in the
+Greek; and he claimed that he could, "with the greatest ease imaginable,"
+produce above five hundred passages from the three Roman plays to prove
+Shakespeare's intimacy with the Latin classics. When he came under the
+influence of Warburton he lost his assurance. He was then "very cautious
+of declaring too positively" on either side of the question; but he was
+loath to give up his belief that Shakespeare knew the classics at first
+hand. Warburton himself did not figure creditably in the controversy. He
+might ridicule the discoveries of other critics, but his vanity often
+allured him to displays of learning as absurd as theirs. No indecision
+troubled Upton or Zachary Grey. They saw in Shakespeare a man of profound
+reading, one who might well have worn out his eyes in poring over classic
+tomes. They clutched at anything to show his deliberate imitation of the
+Ancients. There could be no better instance of the ingenious folly of this
+type of criticism than the passage in the _Notes on Shakespeare_, where
+Grey argues from Gloucester's words in _Richard III._, "Go you before and
+I will follow you," that Shakespeare knew, and was indebted to, Terence's
+_Andria_. About the same time Peter Whalley, the editor of Ben Jonson,
+brought out his _Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare_ (1748), the
+first formal treatise devoted directly to the subject of controversy.
+Therein it is claimed that Shakespeare knew Latin well enough to have
+acquired in it a taste and elegance of judgment, and was more indebted to
+the Ancients than was commonly imagined. On the whole, however, Whalley's
+attitude was more reasonable than that of Upton or Grey, for he admitted
+that his list of parallel passages might not settle the point at issue.
+
+After such a display of misapplied learning it is refreshing to meet with
+the common sense of one who was a greater scholar than any of these
+pedants. Johnson has less difficulty in giving his opinion on the extent
+of Shakespeare's learning than in discovering the reasons of the
+controversy. The evidence of Shakespeare's contemporary, he says, ought to
+decide the question unless some testimony of equal force can be opposed,
+and such testimony he refuses to find in the collections of the Uptons and
+Greys. It is especially remarkable that Johnson, who is not considered to
+have been strong in research, should be the first to state that
+Shakespeare used North's translation of Plutarch. He is the first also to
+point out that there was an English translation of the play on which the
+_Comedy of Errors_ was founded,(17) and the first to show that it was not
+necessary to go back to the _Tale of Gamelyn_ for the story of _As you
+like it_. There is no evidence how he came by this knowledge. The casual
+and allusive manner in which he advances his information would seem to
+show that it was not of his own getting. He may have been indebted for it
+to the scholar who two years later put an end to the controversy. The
+edition of Shakespeare did not appear till October, 1765, and early in
+that year Johnson had spent his "joyous evening" at Cambridge with Richard
+Farmer.(18)
+
+The _Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare_ is not an independent treatise
+like Whalley's _Enquiry_, but rather a detailed reply to the arguments of
+Upton and his fellows. Farmer had once been idle enough, he tells us
+himself, to collect parallel passages, but he had been saved by his
+remarkable bibliographical knowledge. He found out that the literature of
+the age of Elizabeth was a better hunting ground than the classics for
+Shakespearian commentators. Again and again he shows that passages which
+had been urged as convincing proof of knowledge of Latin or Greek are
+either borrowed from contemporary translations or illustrated by
+contemporary usage. In so far as the _Essay_ aims at showing the futility
+of the arguments advanced to prove Shakespeare's learning, it is
+convincing. The only criticism that can reasonably be passed on it is that
+Farmer is apt to think he has proved his own case when he has merely
+destroyed the evidence of his opponents. His conclusion regarding
+Shakespeare's knowledge of French and Italian may be too extreme to be
+generally accepted now, and indeed it may not be logically deducible from
+his examination of the arguments of other critics; but on the whole the
+book is a remarkably able study. Though Farmer speaks expressly of
+acquitting "our great poet of all piratical depredations on the Ancients,"
+his purpose has often been misunderstood, or at least misrepresented. He
+aimed at giving Shakespeare the greater commendation, but certain critics
+of the earlier half of the nineteenth century would have it that he had
+tried to prove, for his own glory, that Shakespeare was a very ignorant
+fellow. William Maginn in particular proclaimed the _Essay_ a "piece of
+pedantic impertinence not paralleled in literature." The early Variorum
+editions had acknowledged its value by reprinting it in its entirety,
+besides quoting from it liberally in the notes to the separate plays, and
+Maginn determined to do his best to rid them in future of this
+"superfluous swelling." So he indulged in a critical Donnybrook; but after
+hitting out and about at the _Essay_ for three months he left it much as
+he found it.(19) He could not get to close quarters with Farmer's
+scholarship. His bluster compares ill with Farmer's gentler manner, and in
+some passages the quiet humour has proved too subtle for his animosity.
+There was more impartiality in the judgment of Johnson: "Dr. Farmer, you
+have done that which was never done before; that is, you have completely
+finished a controversy beyond all further doubt."(20)
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+After the publication of Farmer's _Essay_ there was a change in the
+character of the editions of Shakespeare. Farmer is the forerunner of
+Steevens and Malone. He had a just idea of the importance of his work when
+he spoke of himself as the pioneer of the commentators. It did not matter
+whether his main contention were accepted; he had at least shown the
+wealth of illustration which was awaiting the scholar who cared to search
+in the literature of Shakespeare's age, and Steevens and Malone were not
+slow to follow. They had the advantage of being early in the field; but it
+is doubtful if any later editor has contributed as much as either of them
+did to the elucidation of Shakespeare's text. They have been oftener
+borrowed from than has been admitted, and many a learned note of later
+date may be found in germ in their editions. But with the advance of
+detailed scholarship the Prefaces deteriorate in literary merit. They
+concern themselves more and more with textual and bibliographical points,
+and hence, if they are of greater interest to the student, they are of
+less value as indications of the century's regard for Shakespeare. The
+change is already noticeable in Capell's Preface, on the literary
+shortcomings of which Johnson expressed himself so forcibly. Johnson is
+the last editor whose Preface is a piece of general criticism. It is an
+essay which can stand by itself.
+
+By the time of Johnson and Capell the editor of Shakespeare has come to a
+clear idea of his "true duty." Rowe had no suspicion of the textual
+problems awaiting his successors. A dramatist himself, he wished merely to
+publish Shakespeare's plays as he would publish his own. Accordingly he
+modernised the spelling, divided the scenes, and added lists of dramatis
+personae; and the folio gave place to six octavo volumes. He was content
+to found his text on the fourth Folio, the last and worst; he had no idea
+of the superior claims of the first, though he professed to have compared
+the several editions. He corrected many errors and occasionally hit upon a
+happy emendation; but on the whole his interest in Shakespeare was that of
+the dramatist. Pope's interest was that of the poet. There is some truth
+in the criticism that he gave Shakespeare not as he was, but as he ought
+to be, though Pope might well have retorted that in his opinion the two
+conditions were identical. Whatever did not conform to his opinion of
+Shakespeare's style he treated as an interpolation. His collation of the
+texts, by convincing him of their corruption, only prompted him to a more
+liberal exercise of his own judgment. In the supplementary volume of
+Pope's edition, it had been suggested by Sewell that our great writers
+should be treated in the same way as the classics were, and the idea was
+put into practice by Theobald, who could say that his method of editing
+was "the first assay of the kind on any modern author whatsoever." By his
+careful collation of the Quartos and Folios, he pointed the way to the
+modern editor. But he was followed by Hanmer, who, as his chief interest
+was to rival Pope, was content with Pope's methods. It is easy to
+underestimate the value of Hanmer's edition; his happy conjectures have
+been prejudiced by his neglect of the older copies and his unfortunate
+attempt to regularise the metre; but what alone concerns us here is that
+he reverts to the methods which Theobald had discarded. Warburton,
+confident in his intellectual gifts, was satisfied with Theobald's
+examination of the early copies, and trusted to his own insight "to settle
+the genuine text." The critical ingenuity of editors and commentators,
+before the authority of the Folios was established, betrayed them into
+inevitable error. The amusing variety of conjectural readings was met by
+the exquisite satire of Fielding,(21) as well as by the heavy censure of
+Grub Street. "It is to be wished," says a catchpenny publication, "that
+the original text of Shakespeare were left unaltered for every English
+reader to understand. The numerous fry of commentators will at last
+explain his original meaning away."(22) This criticism was out of date by
+the time of Johnson and Capell. As it has long been the fashion to decry
+Johnson's edition, it is well to recall two statements in his Preface,
+which show that he had already discovered what later editors have found
+out for themselves:
+
+
+    "I collated all the folios at the beginning, but afterwards used
+    only the first."(23)
+
+    "It has been my settled principle that the reading of the ancient
+    books is probably true.... As I practised conjecture more, I
+    learned to trust it less."
+
+
+Johnson's collation may not have been thorough; but no modern editor can
+say that he proceeded on a wrong method.
+
+Johnson has included in his Preface an account of the work of earlier
+editors, and it is the first attempt of the kind which is impartial. He
+shows that Rowe has been blamed for not performing what he did not
+undertake; he is severe on Pope for the allusion to the "dull duty of an
+editor," as well as for the performance of it, though he also finds much
+to praise; he does more justice to Sir Thomas Hammer than has commonly
+been done since; and he is not silent on the weaknesses of Warburton. The
+only thing in this unprejudiced account which is liable to criticism is
+his treatment of Theobald. But the censure is as just as the praise which
+it is now the fashion to heap on him. Though Theobald was the first to pay
+due respect to the original editions, we cannot, in estimating his
+capacity, ignore the evidence of his correspondence with Warburton. In the
+more detailed account of his work given below, it is shown that there was
+a large measure of justice in the common verdict of the eighteenth
+century, but it was only prejudiced critics like Pope or Warburton who
+would say that his Shakespearian labours were futile. Johnson is careful
+to state that "what little he did was commonly right."
+
+It would appear that Macaulay's estimate of Johnson's own edition has been
+generally accepted, even by those who in other matters remark on the
+historian's habit of exaggeration. "The Preface," we read, "though it
+contains some good passages, is not in his best manner. The most valuable
+notes are those in which he had an opportunity of showing how attentively
+he had, during many years, observed human life and human nature. The best
+specimen is the note on the character of Polonius. Nothing so good is to
+be found even in Wilhelm Meister's admirable examination of _Hamlet_. But
+here praise must end. It would be difficult to name a more slovenly, a
+more worthless edition of any great classic. The reader may turn over play
+after play without finding one happy conjectural emendation, or one
+ingenious and satisfactory explanation of a passage which had baffled
+preceding commentators."(24) And we still find it repeated that his
+edition was a failure. Johnson distrusted conjecture; but that there is
+not one happy conjectural emendation is only less glaringly untrue than
+the other assertion that there is not one new ingenious and satisfactory
+explanation. Even though we make allowance for Macaulay's mannerism, it is
+difficult to believe that he had honestly consulted the edition. Those who
+have worked with it know the force of Johnson's claim that not a single
+passage in the whole work had appeared to him corrupt which he had not
+attempted to restore, or obscure which he had not endeavoured to
+illustrate. We may neglect the earlier eighteenth-century editions of
+Shakespeare, but if we neglect Johnson's we run a serious risk. We may now
+abandon his text; we must rely on later scholarship for the explanation of
+many allusions; but, wherever a difficulty can be solved by common sense,
+we shall never find his notes antiquated. Other editions are distinguished
+by accuracy, ingenuity, or learning; the supreme distinction of his is
+sagacity. He cleared a way through a mass of misleading conjectures. In
+disputed passages he has an almost unerring instinct for the explanation
+which alone can be right; and when the reading is corrupt beyond
+emendation, he gives the most helpful statement of the probable meaning.
+Not only was Johnson's edition the best which had yet appeared; it is
+still one of the few editions which are indispensable.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+The third quarter of the eighteenth century, and not the first quarter of
+the nineteenth, is the true period of transition in Shakespearian
+criticism. The dramatic rules had been finally deposed. The corrected
+plays were falling into disfavour, and though Shakespeare's dramas were
+not yet acted as they were written, more respect was being paid to the
+originals. The sixty years' controversy on the extent of his learning had
+ended by proving that the best commentary on him is the literature of his
+own age. At the same time there is a far-reaching change in the literary
+appreciations of Shakespeare, which announces the school of Coleridge and
+Hazlitt: his _characters_ now become the main topics of criticism.
+
+In the five essays on the _Tempest_ and _King Lear_ contributed by Joseph
+Warton to the _Adventurer_ in 1753-54, we can recognise the coming change
+in critical methods. He began them by giving in a sentence a summary of
+the common verdicts: "As Shakespeare is sometimes blamable for the conduct
+of his fables, which have no unity; and sometimes for his diction, which
+is obscure and turgid; so his characteristical excellences may possibly be
+reduced to these three general heads--his lively creative imagination, his
+strokes of nature and passion, and his preservation of the consistency of
+his characters." Warton himself believed in the dramatic conventions. He
+objected to the Edmund story in _King Lear_ on the ground that it
+destroyed the unity of the fable. But he had the wisdom to recognise that
+irregularities in structure may be excused by the representation of the
+persons of the drama.(25) Accordingly, in his examination of the _Tempest_
+and _King Lear_, he pays most attention to the characters, and relegates
+to a short closing paragraph his criticism of the development of the
+action. Though his method has nominally much in common with that of
+Maurice Morgann and the romantic critics, in practice it is very
+different. He treats the characters from without: he lacks the intuitive
+sympathy which is the secret of later criticism. To him the play is a
+representation of life, not a transcript from life. The characters, who
+are more real to us than actual persons of history, and more intimate than
+many an acquaintance, appear to him to be creatures of the imagination who
+live in a different world from his own. Warton describes the picture: he
+criticises the portraits of the characters rather than the characters
+themselves.
+
+The gradual change in the critical attitude is illustrated also by Lord
+Kames, whom Heath had reason to describe, before the appearance of
+Johnson's Preface, as "the truest judge and most intelligent admirer of
+Shakespeare."(26) The scheme of his _Elements of Criticism_ (1762) allowed
+him to deal with Shakespeare only incidentally, as in the digression where
+he distinguishes between the presentation and the description of passion,
+but he gives more decisive expression to Warton's view that observance of
+the rules is of subordinate importance to the truthful exhibition of
+character. The mechanical part, he observes, in which alone Shakespeare is
+defective, is less the work of genius than of experience, and it is
+knowledge of human nature which gives him his supremacy. The same views
+are repeated in the periodical essays. The _Mirror_ regards it as
+"preposterous" to endeavour to regularise his plays, and finds the source
+of his superiority in his almost supernatural powers of invention, his
+absolute command over the passions, and his wonderful knowledge of nature;
+and the _Lounger_ says that he presents the abstract of life in all its
+modes and in every time. The rules are forgotten,--we cease to hear even
+that they are useless. But the _Elements of Criticism_ gave Kames no
+opportunity to show that his attitude to the characters themselves was
+other than Warton's.
+
+No critic had questioned Shakespeare's truth to nature. The flower of
+Pope's Preface is the section on his knowledge of the world and his power
+over the passions. Lyttleton showed his intimacy with Pope's opinion when
+in his _Dialogues of the Dead_ he made him say: "No author had ever so
+copious, so bold, so _creative_ an imagination, with so perfect a
+knowledge of the passions, the humours and sentiments of mankind. He
+painted all characters, from kings down to peasants, with equal truth and
+equal force. If human nature were destroyed, and no monument were left of
+it except his works, other beings might know what man was from those
+writings." The same eulogy is repeated in other words by Johnson. And in
+Gray's _Progress of Poesy_ Shakespeare is "Nature's Darling." It was his
+diction which gave most scope to the censure of the better critics. An age
+whose literary watchwords were simplicity and precision was bound to
+remark on his obscurities and plays on words, and even, as Dryden had
+done, on his bombast. What Shaftesbury(27) or Atterbury(28) had said at
+the beginning of the century is repeated, as we should expect, by the
+rhetoricians, such as Blair. But it was shown by Kames that the merit of
+Shakespeare's language lay in the absence of those abstract and general
+terms which were the blemish of the century's own diction. "Shakespeare's
+style in that respect," says Kames, "is excellent: every article in his
+descriptions is particular, as in nature." And herein Kames gave
+independent expression to the views of the poet who is said to have lived
+in the wrong century. "In truth," said Gray, "Shakespeare's language is
+one of his principal beauties; and he has no less advantage over your
+Addisons and Rowes in this than in those other great excellences you
+mention. Every word in him is a picture."(29)
+
+The first book devoted directly to the examination of Shakespeare's
+characters was by William Richardson, Professor of Humanity in the
+University of Glasgow. His _Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of
+some of Shakespeare's remarkable Characters_, which dealt with Macbeth,
+Hamlet, Jaques, and Imogen, appeared in 1774; ten years later he added a
+second series on Richard III., King Lear, and Timon of Athens; and in 1789
+he concluded his character studies with his essay on Falstaff. As the
+titles show, Richardson's work has a moral purpose. His intention, as he
+tells us, was to make poetry subservient to philosophy, and to employ it
+in tracing the principles of human conduct. Accordingly, he has prejudiced
+his claims as a literary critic. He is not interested in Shakespeare's art
+for its own sake; but that he should use Shakespeare's characters as the
+subjects of moral disquisitions is eloquent testimony to their truth to
+nature. His classical bias, excusable in a Professor of Latin, is best
+seen in his essay "On the Faults of Shakespeare,"(30) of which the title
+was alone sufficient to win him the contempt of later critics. His essays
+are the dull effusions of a clever man. Though they are not inspiriting,
+they are not without interest. He recognised that the source of
+Shakespeare's greatness is that he became for the time the person whom he
+represented.
+
+Before the appearance of Richardson's _Philosophical Analysis_, Thomas
+Whately had written his _Remarks on Some of the Characters of
+Shakespeare_; but it was not published till 1785. The author, who died in
+1772, had abandoned it in order to complete, in 1770, his _Observations on
+Modern Gardening_. The book contains only a short introduction and a
+comparison of Macbeth and Richard III. The fragment is sufficient,
+however, to indicate more clearly than the work of Richardson the coming
+change. The author has himself remarked on the novelty of his method. The
+passage must be quoted, as it is the first definite statement that the
+examination of Shakespeare's characters should be the main object of
+Shakespearian criticism:
+
+
+    "The writers upon dramatic composition have, for the most part,
+    confined their observations to the fable; and the maxims received
+    amongst them, for the conduct of it, are therefore emphatically
+    called, _The Rules of the Drama_. It has been found easy to give
+    and to apply them; they are obvious, they are certain, they are
+    general: and poets without genius have, by observing them,
+    pretended to fame; while critics without discernment have assumed
+    importance from knowing them. But the regularity thereby
+    established, though highly proper, is by no means the first
+    requisite in a dramatic composition. Even waiving all
+    consideration of those finer feelings which a poet's imagination
+    or sensibility imparts, there is, within the colder provinces of
+    judgment and of knowledge, a subject for criticism more worthy of
+    attention than the common topics of discussion: I mean the
+    distinction and preservation of _character_."
+
+
+The earlier critics who remarked on Shakespeare's depiction of character
+had not suspected that the examination of it was to oust the older
+methods.
+
+A greater writer, who has met with unaccountable neglect, was to express
+the same views independently. Maurice Morgann had apparently written his
+_Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff_ about 1774, in an
+interval of political employment, but he was not prevailed upon to publish
+it till 1777. The better we know it, the more we shall regret that it is
+the only critical work which he allowed to survive. He too refers to his
+book as a "novelty." He believes the task of considering Shakespeare in
+detail to have been "hitherto unattempted." But his main object, unlike
+Whately's or Richardson's, is a "critique on the genius, the arts, and the
+conduct of Shakespeare." He concentrates his attention on a single
+character, only to advance to more general criticism. "Falstaff is the
+word only, Shakespeare is the theme."
+
+Morgann's book did not meet with the attention which it deserved, nor to
+this day has its importance been fully recognised. Despite his warnings,
+his contemporaries regarded it simply as a defence of Falstaff's courage.
+One spoke of him as a paradoxical critic, and others doubted if he meant
+what he said. All were unaccountably indifferent to his main purpose. The
+book was unknown even to Hazlitt, who in the preface to his _Characters of
+Shakespeare's Plays_ alludes only to Whately(31) and Richardson as his
+English predecessors. Yet it is the true forerunner of the romantic
+criticism of Shakespeare. Morgann's attitude to the characters is the same
+as Coleridge's and Hazlitt's; his criticism, neglecting all formal
+matters, resolves itself into a study of human nature. It was he who first
+said that Shakespeare's creations should be treated as historic rather
+than as dramatic beings. And the keynote of his criticism is that "the
+impression is the fact." He states what he _feels_, and he explains the
+reason in language which is barely on this side idolatry.(32)
+
+
+
+
+The Essays.
+
+
+
+Nicholas Rowe.
+
+
+Nicholas Rowe's _Account of the Life, etc., of Mr. William Shakespear_
+forms the introduction to his edition of Shakespeare's plays (1709, 6
+vols., 8vo).
+
+Rowe has the double honour of being the first editor of the plays of
+Shakespeare and the first to attempt an authoritative account of his life.
+The value of the biography can best be judged by comparing it with the
+accounts given in such books as Fuller's _Worthies of England_ (1662),
+Phillips's _Theatrum Poetarum_ (1675), Winstanley's _English Poets_
+(1687), Langbaine's _English Dramatick Poets_ (1691), Pope Blount's
+_Remarks upon Poetry_ (1694), or Jeremy Collier's _Historical and Poetical
+Dictionary_ (1701). Though some of the traditions--for which he has
+acknowledged his debt to Betterton--are of doubtful accuracy, it is safe to
+say that but for Rowe they would have perished.
+
+The _Account of Shakespeare_ was the standard biography during the
+eighteenth century. It was reprinted by Pope, Hanmer, Warburton, Johnson,
+Steevens, Malone, and Reed; but they did not give it in the form in which
+Rowe had left it. Pope took the liberty of condensing and rearranging it,
+and as he did not acknowledge what he had done, his silence led other
+editors astray. Those who did note the alterations presumed that they had
+been made by Rowe himself in the second edition in 1714. Steevens, for
+instance, states that he publishes the life from "Rowe's second edition,
+in which it had been abridged and altered by himself after its appearance
+in 1709." But what Steevens reprints is Rowe's _Account of Shakespeare_ as
+edited by Pope. In this volume the _Account_ is given in its original form
+for the first time since 1714.
+
+Pope omitted passages dealing only indirectly with Shakespeare, or
+expressing opinions with which he disagreed. He also placed the details of
+Shakespeare's later years (pp. 21-3) immediately after the account of his
+relationship with Ben Jonson (p. 9), so that the biography might form a
+complete portion by itself. With the exception of an occasional word,
+nothing occurs in the emended edition which is not to be found somewhere
+in the first.
+
+A seventh and supplementary volume containing the Poems was added in 1710.
+It included Charles Gildon's _Remarks_ on the Plays and Poems and his
+_Essay on the Art, Rise, and Progress of the Stage in Greece, Rome, and
+England_.
+
+
+
+John Dennis.
+
+
+John Dennis's three letters "on the genius and writings of Shakespear"
+(February 1710-11) were published together in 1712 under the title _An
+Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespear_. The volume contained also
+two letters on the 40th and 47th numbers of the _Spectator_. All were
+reprinted in Dennis's _Original Letters, Familiar, Moral and Critical_, 2
+vols., 1721. The Dedication is to George Granville, then Secretary at War.
+"To whom," says Dennis, "can an Essay upon the Genius and Writings of
+Shakespear be so properly address'd, as to him who best understands
+Shakespear, and who has most improv'd him? I would not give this just
+encomium to the _Jew of Venice_, if I were not convinc'd, from a long
+experience of the penetration and force of your judgment, that no
+exaltation can make you asham'd of your former noble art."
+
+In 1693 Dennis had published the _Impartial Critick_, a reply to Rymer's
+_Short View of Tragedy_; but there is little about Shakespeare in its five
+dialogues, their main purpose being to show the absurdity of Rymer's plea
+for adopting the Greek methods in the English drama. Dennis had, however,
+great respect for Rymer's ability. In the first letter to the _Spectator_
+he says that Rymer "will always pass with impartial posterity for a most
+learned, a most judicious, and a most useful critick"; and in the
+_Characters and Conduct of Sir John Edgar_ he says that "there was a great
+deal of good and just criticism" in the _Short View_.
+
+In 1702 he brought out a "corrected" version of the _Merry Wives_ with the
+title of the _Comical Gallant or the Amours of Sir John Falstaffe_. The
+adaptation of _Coriolanus_, which was the occasion of the _Letters_ given
+in this volume, appeared as the _Invader of his country, or the Fatal
+Resentment_. It was produced at Drury Lane in November, 1719, but ran for
+only three nights. It was published in 1720. An account of it will be
+found in Genest's _English Stage_, iii. 2-5. It is the subject of Dennis's
+letter to Steele of 26th March, 1719 (see Steele's _Theatre_, ed. Nichols,
+1791, ii. pp. 542, etc.).
+
+
+
+Alexander Pope.
+
+
+Pope's edition of Shakespeare was published by Tonson in six quarto
+volumes. The first appeared in 1725, as the title-page shows; all the
+others are dated "1723."
+
+In the note to the line in the _Dunciad_ in which he laments his "ten
+years to comment and translate," Pope gives us to understand that he
+prepared his edition of Shakespeare after he had completed the translation
+of the _Iliad_ and before he set to work on the _Odyssey_. His own
+correspondence, however, shows that he was engaged on Shakespeare and the
+_Odyssey_ at the same time. There is some uncertainty as to when his
+edition was begun. The inference to be drawn from a letter to Pope from
+Atterbury is that it had been undertaken by August, 1721. We have more
+definite information as to the date of its completion. In a letter to
+Broome of 31st October, 1724, Pope writes: "Shakespear is finished. I have
+just written the Preface, and in less than three weeks it will be public"
+(Ed. Elwin and Courthope, viii. 88). But it did not appear till March.
+Pope himself was partly to blame for the delay. In December we find Tonson
+"impatient" for the return of the Preface (_id._ ix. 547). In the revision
+of the text Pope was assisted by Fenton and Gay (see Reed's Variorum
+edition, 1803, ii. p. 149).
+
+A seventh volume containing the poems was added in 1725, but Pope had no
+share in it. It is a reprint of the supplementary volume of Rowe's
+edition, "the whole revised and corrected, with a Preface, by Dr. Sewell."
+The most prominent share in this volume of "Pope's Shakespeare" thus fell
+to Charles Gildon, who had attacked Pope in his _Art of Poetry_ and
+elsewhere, and was to appear later in the _Dunciad_. Sewell's preface is
+dated Nov. 24, 1724.
+
+Pope made few changes in his Preface in the second edition (1728, 8 vols.,
+12mo). The chief difference is the inclusion of the _Double Falshood_,
+which Theobald had produced in 1727 as Shakespeare's, in the list of the
+spurious plays.
+
+The references in the Preface to the old actors were criticised by John
+Roberts in 1729 in a pamphlet entitled _An Answer to Mr. Pope's Preface to
+Shakespear. In a Letter to a Friend. Being a Vindication of the Old Actors
+who were the Publishers and Performers of that Author's Plays.... By a
+Stroling Player._
+
+
+
+Lewis Theobald.
+
+
+Theobald's edition of Shakespeare (7 vols. 8vo) appeared in 1733. The
+Preface was condensed in the second edition in 1740. It is here given in
+its later form.
+
+Theobald had long been interested in Shakespeare. In 1715 he had written
+the _Cave of Poverty_, a poem "in imitation of Shakespeare," and in 1720
+he had brought out an adaptation of _Richard II_. But it was not till
+1726--though the Dedication bears the date of March 18, 1725--that he
+produced his first direct contribution to Shakespearian
+scholarship,--_Shakespeare restored: or, a Specimen of the Many Errors, as
+well Committed, as Unamended, by Mr. Pope in his Late Edition of this
+Poet. Designed Not only to correct the said Edition, but to restore the
+True Reading of Shakespeare in all the Editions ever yet publish'd._
+
+We learn from a letter by Theobald dated 15th April, 1729, that he had
+been in correspondence with Pope fully two years before the publication of
+this volume. (See Nichols, _Illustrations of the Literary History of the
+Eighteenth Century_, ii., p. 221). Pope, however, had not encouraged his
+advances. In the same letter Theobald states that he had no design of
+commenting on Shakespeare till he saw "how incorrect an edition Mr. Pope
+had given the publick." This remark was prompted by a note in the
+_Dunciad_ of 1729, where it was stated that "during the space of two
+years, while Mr. Pope was preparing his Edition of Shakespear, and
+published advertisements, requesting all lovers of the author to
+contribute to a more perfect one, this Restorer (who had then some
+correspondence with him, and was solliciting favours by letters) did
+wholly conceal his design, 'till after its publication." But if Theobald
+had not thought of issuing comments on Shakespeare's plays till Pope's
+edition appeared, he must have known them well already, for _Shakespeare
+Restored_ is not a hasty piece of work.
+
+Despite the aggressiveness of the title, Theobald protests his regard for
+Pope in such passages as these:
+
+
+    "It was no small Satisfaction therefore to me, when I first heard
+    Mr. _Pope_ had taken upon him the Publication of _Shakespeare_. I
+    very reasonably expected, from his known Talents and Abilities,
+    from his uncommon Sagacity and Discernment, and from his unwearied
+    Diligence and Care of informing himself by an happy and extensive
+    Conversation, we should have had our Author come out as perfect,
+    as the want of _Manuscripts_ and _original Copies_ could give us a
+    Possibility of hoping. I may dare to say, a great Number of
+    _Shakespeare_'s Admirers, and of Mr. _Pope_'s too, (both which I
+    sincerely declare myself,) concurred in this Expectation: For
+    there is a certain _curiosa felicitas_, as was said of an eminent
+    _Roman_ Poet, in that Gentleman's Way of working, which, we
+    presum'd, would have laid itself out largely in such a Province;
+    and that he would not have sate down contented with performing, as
+    he calls it himself, the _dull Duty_ of an _Editor_ only."
+
+    "I have so great an Esteem for Mr. _Pope_, and so high an Opinion
+    of his Genius and Excellencies, that I beg to be excused from the
+    least Intention of derogating from his Merits, in this Attempt to
+    restore the true Reading of _Shakespeare_. Tho' I confess a
+    Veneration, almost rising to Idolatry, for the writings of this
+    inimitable Poet, I would be very loth even to do _him_ Justice at
+    the Expence of _that other_ Gentleman's Character."
+
+
+Whether or not these declarations were sincere, they would hardly have
+stayed the resentment of a less sensitive man than Pope when passage after
+passage was pointed out where errors were "as well committed as
+unamended." Theobald even hazarded the roguish suggestion that the
+bookseller had played his editor false by not sending him all the sheets
+to revise; and he certainly showed that the readings of Rowe's edition had
+occasionally been adopted without the professed collation of the older
+copies. The volume could raise no doubt of Theobald's own diligence. The
+chief part of it is devoted to an examination of the text of _Hamlet_, but
+there is a long appendix dealing with readings in other plays, and in it
+occurs the famous emendation of the line in _Henry V._ describing
+Falstaff's death,--"for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and _a' babled of
+green fields_." It should be noted that the credit of this reading is not
+entirely Theobald's. He admits that in an edition "with some marginal
+conjectures of a Gentleman sometime deceased" he found the emendation "and
+_a' talked_ of green fields." Theobald's share thus amounts to the
+doubtful improvement of substituting _babbled_ for _talked_.
+
+Though this volume has undoubted merits, it is not difficult to understand
+why the name of Theobald came to convey to the eighteenth century the idea
+of painful pedantry, and why one so eminently just as Johnson should have
+dubbed him "a man of heavy diligence, with very slender powers." While his
+knowledge is indisputable, he has little or no delicacy of taste; his
+style is dull and lumbering; and the mere fact that he dedicated his
+_Shakespeare Restored_ to John Rich, the Covent Garden manager who
+specialised in pantomime and played the part of harlequin, may at least
+cast some doubt on his discretion. But he successfully attacked Pope where
+he was weakest and where as an editor he should have been strongest. "From
+this time," in the words of Johnson, "Pope became an enemy to editors,
+collators, commentators, and verbal critics; and hoped to persuade the
+world that he had miscarried in this undertaking only by having a mind too
+great for such minute employment."
+
+Not content with the errors pointed out in _Shakespeare Restored_--a quarto
+volume of two hundred pages--Theobald continued his criticisms of Pope's
+edition in _Mist's Journal_ and the _Daily Journal_, until he was ripe for
+the _Dunciad_. Pope enthroned him as the hero of the poem, and so he
+remained till he was replaced by Colley Cibber in 1741, when the
+alteration necessitated several omissions. In the earlier editions
+Theobald soliloquised thus:
+
+
+    Here studious I unlucky Moderns save,
+    Nor sleeps one error in its father's grave,
+    Old puns restore, lost blunders nicely seek,
+    And crucify poor Shakespear once a week.
+    For thee I dim these eyes, and stuff this head,
+    With all such reading as was never read;
+    For the supplying, in the worst of days,
+    Notes to dull books, and prologues to dull plays;
+    For thee explain a thing 'till all men doubt it,
+    And write about it, Goddess, and about it.
+
+
+Theobald is introduced also in the _Art of Sinking in Poetry_ among the
+classes of authors described as swallows and eels: the former "are
+eternally skimming and fluttering up and down, but all their agility is
+employed to catch flies," the latter "wrap themselves up in their own mud,
+but are mighty nimble and pert." About the same time, however, Pope
+brought out the second edition (1728) of his Shakespeare, and in it he
+incorporated some of Theobald's conjectures, though his recognition of
+their merit was grudging and even dishonestly inadequate. (See the preface
+to the various readings at the end of the eighth volume, 1728.) Yet one's
+sympathies with Theobald are prejudiced by his ascription to Shakespeare
+of the _Double Falshood, or the Distrest Lovers_, a play which was acted
+in 1727 and printed in the following year. Theobald professed to have
+revised it and adapted it to the stage. The question of authorship has not
+been settled, but if Theobald is relieved from the imputation of forgery,
+he must at least stand convicted of ignorance of the Shakespearian manner.
+Pope at once recognised that the play was not Shakespeare's, and added a
+contemptuous reference to it in the second edition of his Preface. It was
+the opinion of Farmer that the groundwork of the play was by Shirley (see
+the _Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare_, p. 181).
+
+Theobald now sought to revenge himself on Pope, and, in his own words, he
+"purposed to reply only in Shakespeare" (Nichols, _id._ ii., p. 248). His
+first plan was to publish a volume of _Remarks on Shakespeare_. On 15th
+April, 1729, he says the volume "will now shortly appear in the world"
+(id., p. 222), but on 6th November he writes to Warburton, "I know you
+will not be displeased, if I should tell you in your ear, perhaps I may
+venture to join the _Text_ to my _Remarks_" (_id._, p. 254). By the
+following March he had definitely determined upon giving an edition of
+Shakespeare, as appears from another letter to Warburton: "As it is
+necessary I should now inform the publick that I mean to attempt to give
+them an edition of that Poet's [_i.e._ Shakespeare's] text, together with
+my corrections, I have concluded to give this notice, not only by
+advertisements, but by an occasional pamphlet, which, in order to
+retaliate some of our Editor's kindnesses to me, I mean to call, _An Essay
+upon Mr. Pope's Judgment, extracted from his own Works; and humbly
+addressed to him_" (_id._ ii., p. 551). Of this he forwards Warburton an
+extract. The pamphlet does not appear to have been published. The
+_Miscellany on Taste_ which he brought out anonymously in 1732 contains a
+section entitled "Of Mr. Pope's Taste of Shakespeare," but this is merely
+a reprint of the letter of 15th (or 16th) April, which had already been
+printed in the _Daily Journal_. A considerable time elapsed before
+arrangements for publication were completed, the interval being marked by
+a temporary estrangement from Warburton and an unsuccessful candidature
+for the laureateship. Articles with Tonson were signed in November, 1731
+(_id._ ii., pp. 13, 618), and at the same time the correspondence with
+Warburton was renewed. The edition did not appear till 1733. The Preface
+had been begun about the end of 1731.
+
+From March, 1729, with the short break in 1730, Theobald had been in
+steady correspondence with Warburton, and most of his letters, with a few
+of those of Warburton, have been preserved by Nichols (see _id._ ii., pp.
+189, 607). But it would have been more fortunate for Theobald's reputation
+had they perished. The cruel contempt and bitterness of Warburton's
+references to him after their final estrangement may be offensive, but the
+correspondence shows that they were not without some justification.
+Theobald submits his conjectures anxiously to the judgment of Warburton,
+and again and again Warburton saves him from himself. In one of the
+letters Theobald rightly condemns Pope's proposed insertion of "Francis
+Drake" in the incomplete line at the end of the first scene of _Henry VI.,
+Part 1._; but not content with this flawless piece of destructive
+criticism he argues for inserting the words "and Cassiopeia." The
+probability is that if Warburton had not condemned the proposal it would
+have appeared in Theobald's edition. "With a just deference to your most
+convincing reasons," says Theobald, "I shall with great cheerfulness
+banish it as a bad and unsupported conjecture" (_id._ ii., p. 477); and
+this remark is typical of the whole correspondence. A considerable share
+of the merit of Theobald's edition--though the share is mostly
+negative--belongs to Warburton, for Theobald had not taste enough to keep
+him right when he stepped beyond collation of the older editions or
+explanation by parallel passages. Indeed, the letters to Warburton,
+besides helping to explain his reputation in the eighteenth century, would
+in themselves be sufficient to justify his place in the _Dunciad_.
+
+Warburton had undoubtedly given Theobald ungrudging assistance and was
+plainly interested in the success of the edition. But as he had gauged
+Theobald's ability, he had some fears for the Preface. So at least we
+gather from a letter which Theobald wrote to him on 18th November, 1731:
+
+
+    "I am extremely obliged for the tender concern you have for my
+    reputation in what I am _to prefix to my Edition_: and this part,
+    as it will come last in play, I shall certainly be so kind to
+    myself to communicate in due time to your perusal. The whole
+    affair of _Prolegomena_ I have determined to soften into
+    _Preface_. I am so very cool as to my sentiments of my Adversary's
+    usage, that I think the publick should not be too largely troubled
+    with them. _Blockheadry_ is the chief hinge of his satire upon me;
+    and if my Edition do not wipe out that, I ought to be content to
+    let the charge be fixed; if it do, the reputation gained will be a
+    greater triumph than resentment. But, dear Sir, will you, at your
+    leisure hours, think over for me upon the contents, topics,
+    orders, etc., of this branch of my labour? You have a
+    comprehensive memory, and a happiness of digesting the matter
+    joined to it, which my head is often too much embarrassed to
+    perform; let that be the excuse for my inability. But how
+    unreasonable is it to expect this labour, when it is the only part
+    in which I shall not be able to be just to my friends: for, to
+    confess assistance in a _Preface_ will, I am afraid, make me
+    appear too naked. Rymer's extravagant rancour against our Author,
+    under the umbrage of criticism, may, I presume, find a place here"
+    (_id._ ii., pp. 621, 622).
+
+
+This confession of weakness is valuable in the light of Warburton's
+Preface to his own edition of 1747. His statement of the assistance he
+rendered Theobald is rude and cruel, but it is easier to impugn his taste
+than his truthfulness. Theobald did not merely ask for assistance in the
+Preface; he received it too. Warburton expressed himself on this matter,
+with his customary force and with a pleasing attention to detail, in a
+letter to the Rev. Thomas Birch on 24th November, 1737. "You will see in
+Theobald's heap of disjointed stuff," he says, "which he calls a Preface
+to Shakespeare, an observation upon those poems [_i.e._ _L'Allegro_ and
+_Il Penseroso_] which I made to him, and which he did not understand, and
+so has made it a good deal obscure by contracting my note; for you must
+understand that almost all that Preface (except what relates to
+Shakespeare's Life, and the foolish Greek conjectures at the end) was made
+up of notes I sent him on particular passages, and which he has there
+stitched together without head or tail" (Nichols, ii., p. 81). The Preface
+is indeed a poor piece of patch-work. Examination of the footnotes
+throughout the edition corroborates Warburton's concluding statement. Some
+of the annotations which have his name attached to them are repeated
+almost verbatim (_e.g._ the note in _Love's Labour's Lost_ on the use of
+music), while the comparison of Addison and Shakespeare is taken from a
+letter written by Warburton to Concanen in 1726-7 (_id._ ii., pp. 195,
+etc.). The inequality of the essay--the fitful succession of limp and acute
+observations--can be explained only by ill-matched collaboration.
+
+Warburton has himself indicated the extent of Theobald's debt to him. In
+his own copy of Theobald's Shakespeare he marked the passages which he had
+contributed to the Preface, as well as the notes "which Theobald deprived
+him of and made his own," and the volume is now in the Capell collection
+in Trinity College, Cambridge. Mr. Churton Collins, in his attempt to
+prove Theobald the greatest of Shakespearean editors, has said that "if in
+this copy, which we have not had the opportunity of inspecting, Warburton
+has laid claim to more than Theobald has assigned to him, we believe him
+to be guilty of dishonesty even more detestable than that of which the
+proofs are, as we have shown, indisputable."(33) An inspection of the
+Cambridge volume is not necessary to show that a passage in the Preface
+has been conveyed from one of Warburton's letters published by Nichols and
+by Malone. Any defence of Theobald by an absolute refusal to believe
+Warburton's word can be of no value unless some proof be adduced that
+Warburton was here untruthful, and it is peculiarly inept when Theobald's
+own page proclaims the theft. We know that Theobald asked Warburton for
+assistance in the Preface, and gave warning that such assistance would not
+be acknowledged. Warburton could have had no evil motive in marking those
+passages in his _private_ copy; and there is surely a strong presumption
+in favour of a man who deliberately goes over seven volumes, carefully
+indicating the material which he considered his own. It happens that one
+of the passages contains an unfriendly allusion to Pope. If Warburton
+meant to be "dishonest"--and there could be no purpose in being dishonest
+before he was Theobald's enemy--why did he not disclaim this allusion some
+years later? The simple explanation is that he marked the passages for his
+own amusement while he was still on friendly terms with Theobald. They are
+thirteen in number, and they vary in length from a few lines to two pages.
+Four of them are undoubtedly his, and there is nothing to disprove that
+the other nine are his also.(34)
+
+Theobald quotes also from his own correspondence. On 17th March, 1729-30,
+he had written to Warburton a long letter dealing with Shakespeare's
+knowledge of languages and including a specimen of his proposed pamphlet
+against Pope. "Your most necessary caution against inconsistency, with
+regard to my opinion of Shakespeare's knowledge in languages," he there
+says characteristically, "shall not fail to have all its weight with me.
+And therefore the passages that I occasionally quote from the Classics
+shall not be brought as proofs that he imitated those originals, but to
+shew how happily he has expressed themselves upon the same topics"
+(Nichols, ii., pp. 564, etc.). This part of the letter is included
+verbatim three years afterwards in the Preface. So also is the other
+passage in the same letter replying to Pope on the subject of
+Shakespeare's anachronisms. Theobald borrows even from his own published
+writings. Certain passages are reproduced from the Introduction to
+_Shakespeare Restored_.
+
+If Theobald could hardly acknowledge, as he said, the assistance he
+received in writing the Preface, he at least admitted his editorial debt
+to Warburton and others punctiliously and handsomely. After referring to
+Dr. Thirlby of Jesus College, Cambridge, and Hawley Bishop, he thus writes
+of his chief helper:
+
+
+    "To these, I must add the indefatigable Zeal and Industry of my
+    most ingenious and ever-respected Friend, the Reverend Mr.
+    _William Warburton_ of _Newark_ upon _Trent_. This Gentleman, from
+    the Motives of his frank and communicative Disposition,
+    voluntarily took a considerable Part of my Trouble off my Hands;
+    not only read over the whole Author for me, with the exactest
+    Care; but enter'd into a long and laborious Epistolary
+    Correspondence; to which I owe no small Part of my best Criticisms
+    upon my Author.
+
+    "The Number of Passages amended, and admirably Explained, which I
+    have taken care to distinguish with his Name, will shew a Fineness
+    of Spirit and Extent of Reading, beyond all the Commendations I
+    can give them: Nor, indeed, would I any farther be thought to
+    commend a Friend, than, in so doing, to give a Testimony of my own
+    Gratitude."
+
+
+So the preface read in 1733. But by the end of 1734 Warburton had
+quarrelled with Theobald, and by 1740, after a passing friendship with Sir
+Thomas Hanmer, had become definitely attached to the party of Pope. This
+is probably the reason why, in the Preface to the second edition, Theobald
+does not repeat the detailed statement of the assistance he had received.
+He wisely omits also the long and irrelevant passage of Greek conjectures,
+given with no other apparent reason than to parade his learning. And
+several passages either claimed by Warburton (_e.g._ that referring to
+Milton's poems) or known to be his (_e.g._ the comparison of Addison and
+Shakespeare) are also cancelled.
+
+The merits of the text of Theobald's edition are undeniable; but the text
+is not to be taken as the sole measure of his ability. By his diligence in
+collation he restored many of the original readings. His knowledge of
+Elizabethan literature was turned to good account in the explanation and
+illustration of the text. He claims to have read above eight hundred old
+English plays "to ascertain the obsolete and uncommon phrases." But when
+we have spoken of his diligence, we have spoken of all for which, as an
+editor, he was remarkable. Pope had good reason to say of him, though he
+gave the criticism a wider application, that
+
+
+    Pains, reading, study are their just pretence,
+    And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense.
+
+
+The inner history of his Preface would prove of itself that Theobald well
+deserved the notoriety which he enjoyed in the eighteenth century.
+
+
+
+Sir Thomas Hanmer.
+
+
+Sir Thomas Hanmer's edition of Shakespeare, in six handsome quarto
+volumes, was printed at the Clarendon Press in 1743-44. As it appeared
+anonymously it was commonly called the "Oxford edition." It was well
+known, however, that Hanmer was the editor. Vols. ii., iii., and iv. bear
+the date 1743; the others, 1744.
+
+Hanmer had been Speaker of the House of Commons from 1713 to 1715, and had
+played an important part in securing the Protestant succession on the
+death of Queen Anne. He retired from public life on the accession of
+George II., and thereafter lived in "lettered ease" at his seat of
+Mildenhall near Newmarket till his death in 1746. It is not known when he
+undertook his edition of Shakespeare, but the idea of it was probably
+suggested to him by the publication of Theobald's edition in 1733. His
+relative and biographer, Sir Henry Bunbury, writing in 1838, refers to a
+copy of this edition with corrections and notes on the text of every play
+in Hanmer's handwriting. There can be no doubt, however, of the accuracy
+of Warburton's statement that his edition was printed from Pope's, though
+the hastiest examination will prove the falsity of Warburton's other
+remark that Hanmer neglected to compare Pope's edition with Theobald's. He
+relied on Pope's judgment as to the authenticity of passages and on
+Theobald's accuracy in collation. Thus while he omits lines which Pope had
+omitted, or degrades them to the foot of the page, he often adopts
+Theobald's reading of a word or phrase.
+
+He had certainly made considerable progress with the edition by May, 1738,
+when he was visited by Warburton (see Nichols, _Illustrations_, ii. 44,
+69). It was still incomplete in March, 1742, but it was sent to the
+printer at the end of that year, as we learn from a letter of 30th
+December to Zachary Grey, the editor of _Hudibras_: "I must now acquaint
+you that the books are gone out of my hands, and lodged with the
+University of Oxford, which hath been willing to accept of them as a
+present from me. They intend to print them forthwith, in a fair impression
+adorned with sculptures; but it will be so ordered that it will be the
+cheapest book that ever was exposed to sale.... None are to go into the
+hands of booksellers" (Nichols, _Literary Anecdotes_, v., p. 589). Earlier
+in the year, in the important letter concerning his quarrel with
+Warburton, which will be referred to later, he had spoken of his edition
+in the following terms: "As to my own particular, I have no aim to pursue
+in this affair; I propose neither honour, reward, or thanks, and should be
+very well pleased to have the books continue upon their shelf, in my own
+private closet. If it is thought they may be of use or pleasure to the
+publick, I am willing to part with them out of my hands, and to add, for
+the honour of Shakespear, some decorations and embellishments at my own
+expense" (_id._ v., p. 589). The printing of the edition was not
+supervised by Hanmer himself, but by Joseph Smith, Provost of Queen's
+College, and Robert Shippen, Principal of Brasenose. We find them
+receiving instructions that there must be care in the correction of the
+press, that the type must be as large as in Pope's edition, but that the
+paper must be better.
+
+These facts are of interest in connection with Hanmer's inclusion in the
+fourth book of the _Dunciad_. In a note by Pope and Warburton he is
+referred to as "an eminent person, who was about to publish a very pompous
+edition of a great author, _at his own expense_"; and in the poem the
+satire is maladroitly aimed at the handsomeness of the volumes. Warburton
+afterwards implied that he was responsible for the inclusion of this
+passage (_id._, p. 590), and though the claim is disputed by Hanmer's
+biographer, the ineffectiveness of the attack would prove that it was not
+spontaneous. Pope, however, would yield to Warburton's desire the more
+readily if, as Sir Henry Bunbury had reason to believe, the anonymous
+_Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet_, published in 1736, was the work of
+Hanmer,(35) for there Pope's edition was compared unfavourably, though
+courteously, with that of Theobald. (See the _Correspondence of Sir Thomas
+Hanmer_, 1838, pp. 80, etc.)
+
+
+
+William Warburton.
+
+
+"The Works of Shakespear in Eight Volumes. The Genuine Text (collated with
+all the former Editions, and then corrected and emended) is here settled:
+Being restored from the _Blunders_ of the first Editors, and the
+_Interpolations_ of the two Last; with a Comment and Notes, Critical and
+Explanatory. By Mr. Pope and Mr. Warburton. 1747."
+
+So runs the title of what is generally known as Warburton's edition. It is
+professedly a revised issue of Pope's. In point of fact it is founded, not
+on Pope's text, but on the text of Theobald. Warburton does not follow
+even Pope's arrangement of the plays. With one insignificant
+transposition, he gives them in the identical order in which they appear
+in Theobald's edition. And though he has his gibe at Hanmer in the title
+page, he incorporates Hanmer's glossary word for word, and almost letter
+for letter. But his animosity betrays him in his Preface. He complains of
+the trouble which he has been put to by the last two editors, for he has
+had "not only their interpolations to throw out, but the genuine text to
+replace and establish in its stead." He would not have had this trouble
+had he used Pope's edition. He may have believed that what he took from
+Hanmer and Theobald was very much less than what they had received from
+him. According to his own statements he supplied each with a large number
+of important emendations which had been used without acknowledgment. Yet
+this does not excuse the suggestion that his edition was founded on
+Pope's.
+
+The explanation is Warburton's just pride in Pope's friendship,--a pride
+which he took every opportunity of gratifying and parading. But in his
+earlier days he had been, all unknown to Pope, an enemy. He escaped the
+_Dunciad_ by reason of his obscurity. He was the friend of Concanen and
+Theobald, and in a letter to the former, containing his earliest extant
+attempt at Shakespearian criticism, he observes that "Dryden borrows for
+want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius." The letter is dated 2nd
+January, 1726-27, but luckily for Warburton it was not publicly known
+till, in 1766, Akenside used it as a means of paying off old scores (see
+Nichols, _Illustrations_, ii., pp. 195-198, and Malone's Shakespeare,
+1821, vol. xii., pp. 157, etc.). It is of interest also from the fact that
+Theobald transcribed from it almost verbatim the comparison of Shakespeare
+and Addison in the Preface of 1733.
+
+Theobald's deference and even humility must have confirmed Warburton's
+confidence in his own critical powers, but it was not till Theobald's
+Shakespeare was published that Warburton first hinted at an edition by
+himself. From 1729 to 1733 he had given Theobald loyally of his best. On
+the appearance of the edition he betrayed some annoyance that all his
+suggestions had not been accepted. "I have transcribed about fifty
+emendations and remarks," he writes on 17th May, 1734, "which I have at
+several times sent you, omitted in the Edition of Shakespeare, which, I am
+sure, are better than any of mine published there. These I shall convey to
+you soon, and desire you to publish them (as omitted by being mislaid) in
+your Edition of the 'Poems,' which I hope you will soon make ready for the
+press" (Nichols, _Illustrations_, ii., p. 634). These he duly forwarded,
+along with a flattering criticism of the edition. He gives no hint that he
+may himself turn them to account, till the October of the same year, when
+he writes, "I have a great number of notes, etc., on Shakespeare, _for
+some future Edition_" (_id._, p. 654). Here the correspondence ceases. Up
+to this time Warburton had aided Theobald's schemes of retaliating on
+Pope. We have his own authority for attributing to him the remark in
+Theobald's Preface that "it seems a moot point whether Mr. Pope has done
+most injury to Shakespeare as his Editor and Encomiast, or Mr. Rymer done
+him service as his Rival and Censurer." It is probable even that he had a
+hand in Theobald's and Concanen's _Art of a Poet's sinking in Reputation,
+or a Supplement to the Art of sinking in Poetry_.
+
+Warburton then gave his services to Sir Thomas Hanmer. They had become
+acquainted by 1736, and they corresponded frequently till Warburton's
+visit to Mildenhall in May, 1737. It is needless to enter into their
+quarrel, for the interest of it is purely personal. Hanmer told his
+version of it to Joseph Smith, the Provost of Queen's College, Oxford, in
+his letter of 28th October, 1742, and Warburton gave his very different
+account nineteen years later, on 29th January, 1761, when he discovered
+that Hanmer's letter was about to be published in the _Biographia
+Britannica_. In the absence of further evidence it is impossible to decide
+with whom the truth rests. The dignity of Hanmer's letter wins favour by
+contrast with the violence of Warburton's. Yet there must be some truth in
+Warburton's circumstantial details, though his feelings may have prevented
+his seeing them in proper perspective. He says that Hanmer used his notes
+without his knowledge. The statement is probably accurate. But when Hanmer
+says that Warburton's notes were "sometimes just but mostly wild and out
+of the way," we are satisfied, from what we know of Warburton's other
+work, that the criticism was merited. Hanmer apparently found that
+Warburton did not give him much help, and Warburton may have been annoyed
+at failing to find Hanmer as docile as Theobald. They had quarrelled by
+September, 1739, when Warburton records that he has got all his letters
+and papers out of Sir Thomas Hanmer's hands (Nichols, _Illustrations_, ii.
+110. See also Nichols, _Literary Anecdotes_, v. 588-590; _Biographia
+Britannica_, vol vi. (1763), pp. 3743-4, and appendix, p. 223; Philip
+Nichols, _The Castrated Letter of Sir Thomas Hanmer_, 1763; and Bunbury,
+_Correspondence of Hanmer_, pp. 85-90).
+
+During his friendship with Hanmer, Warburton had not lost sight of his own
+edition. The quarrel was precipitated by Hanmer's discovery of Warburton's
+intention; but there is no evidence that Warburton had tried to conceal
+it. Everything goes to show that each editor was so immersed in his own
+scheme that he regarded the other as his collaborator. Hanmer did not know
+at first that Warburton was planning an edition as a means of making some
+money; and Warburton had not suspected that Hanmer would publish an
+edition at all. This is the only reasonable inference to be drawn from a
+letter written by him to the Rev. Thomas Birch in October, 1737. "You are
+pleased to enquire about Shakespeare," he writes. "I believe (to tell it
+as a secret) I shall, after I have got the whole of this work out of my
+hands which I am now engaged in, give an Edition of it to the world. Sir
+Thomas Hanmer has a true critical genius, and has done great things in
+this Author; so you may expect to see a very extraordinary edition of its
+kind. I intend to draw up and prefix to it a just and complete critique on
+Shakespeare and his Works." This letter reads curiously in the light of
+after events; but it proves, if it proves anything, that Warburton did not
+suspect Hanmer's scheme, and believed that Hanmer was helping him in his
+edition. It is equally plain that Hanmer believed he was being helped by
+Warburton.
+
+Announcements of Warburton's forthcoming edition were made in Birch's
+article on Shakespeare in the _General Dictionary, Historical and
+Critical_, vol. ix., January, 1739-40, and in the _History of the Works of
+the Learned_ for 1740 (Nichols, _Illustrations_, ii., pp. 72-4, and _Lit.
+Anecdotes_, v., p. 559). But there were no signs of its appearance, and
+Hanmer had good reason to say in October, 1742, in his letter to Joseph
+Smith, "I am satisfied there is no edition coming or likely to come from
+Warburton; but it is a report raised to support some little purpose or
+other, of which I see there are many on foot." Up to this time Warburton
+had merely suggested emendations and puzzled out explanations: he had not
+set to work seriously on the complete text. Since 1740, when he published
+the _Vindication of the Essay on Man_, his critical and polemical talents
+had been devoted to the service of Pope. To judge from what he says in his
+Preface, his project of an edition of Shakespeare might have been
+abandoned had not Pope persuaded him to proceed with it by the offer of
+making it appear their joint work. Pope had nothing to do with it, for it
+was not begun till after his death. But it was a cruel fate that what
+professed to be a new edition of his "Shakespeare" should really be
+founded on Theobald's. The knowledge of Theobald's use of the Quartos and
+Folios led Warburton to commit a detestable quibble on his title-page.
+There is said to be no evidence that Warburton himself had consulted them.
+Yet the statement that his text is "collated with all the former editions"
+is not absolutely without the bounds of truth: Theobald had consulted
+them, and Warburton does not say that he had consulted them himself. What
+Warburton did was to give full play to his talent for emendation, and to
+indulge what Johnson called his rage for saying something when there is
+nothing to be said. Yet we are too prone to depreciate Warburton. He has
+prejudiced his reputation by his arrogance and his contemptuous malignity;
+but we do him an injustice if we endeavour to gauge his merit only by
+comparing his edition with those of his immediate predecessors. No early
+editor of Shakespeare has gained more than Theobald and suffered more than
+Warburton by the custom of attributing the whole merit of an edition to
+him whose name is on the title page. When we read their correspondence and
+see their editions in the making, it is not difficult to realise what
+Johnson meant when he said that Warburton as a critic would make "two and
+fifty Theobalds, cut into slices."
+
+
+
+Samuel Johnson.
+
+
+Johnson's Preface is here reprinted from the edition of 1777, the last to
+appear in his lifetime. The more important of the few alterations made on
+the original Preface of 1765 are pointed out in the notes.
+
+In 1745 Johnson had published his _Miscellaneous Observations on the
+Tragedy of Macbeth: with Remarks on Sir Thomas Hanmer's Edition of
+Shakespeare. To which is affixed Proposals for a new Edition of
+Shakespeare, with a Specimen._ As Warburton's edition was expected, this
+anonymous scheme met with no encouragement, and Johnson laid it aside till
+1756, when he issued new Proposals. In the interval he had written of
+Shakespeare in the admirable Prologue which inaugurated Garrick's rule at
+Drury Lane, and had shadowed in the _Rambler_ and in the Dedication to
+Mrs. Lennox's _Shakespear Illustrated_ (1753) much of what was to appear
+in perfect form in the Preface of 1765. It was one of the conditions in
+the Proposals that the edition was to be published on or before Christmas,
+1757. As in the case of the _Dictionary_ Johnson underestimated the labour
+which such a work involved. In December, 1757, we find him saying that he
+will publish about March, and in March he says it will be published before
+summer. He must have made considerable progress at this time, as,
+according to his own statement, "many of the plays" were then printed. But
+its preparation was interrupted by the _Idler_ (April, 1758, to April,
+1760). Thereafter Johnson would appear to have done little to it till he
+was awakened to activity by the attack on him in Churchill's _Ghost_
+(1763). The edition at length appeared in October, 1765. "In 1764 and
+1765," says Boswell, "it should seem that Dr. Johnson was so busily
+employed with his edition of _Shakespeare_ as to have had little leisure
+for any other literary exertion, or indeed even for private
+correspondence." The Preface was also published by itself in 1765 with the
+title--_Mr. Johnson's Preface to his Edition of Shakespear's Plays_.
+
+The work immediately attracted great attention. Kenrick lost no time in
+issuing _A Review of Doctor Johnson's New Edition of Shakespeare: in which
+the Ignorance or Inattention of that Editor is exposed, and the Poet
+defended from the Persecution of his Commentators_, 1765. Johnson was
+"above answering for himself," but James Barclay, an Oxford student,
+replied for him, to his annoyance, in _An Examination of Mr. Kenrick's
+Review_, 1766, and Kenrick himself rejoined in _A Defence of Mr. Kenrick's
+Review ... By a Friend_, 1766. The most important criticism of the edition
+was Tyrwhitt's _Observations and Conjectures upon some Passages of
+Shakespeare_, issued anonymously by the Clarendon Press in 1766. Though we
+read that "the author has not entered into the merits of Mr. Johnson's
+performance, but has set down some observations and conjectures," the book
+is in effect an examination of Johnson's edition. Notices appeared also in
+the _Monthly_ and _Critical Reviews_, the _London Magazine_, the
+_Gentleman's Magazine_, and the _Annual Register_. The _Monthly Review_
+devotes its two articles (October and November, 1765) chiefly to the
+Preface. It examines at considerable length Johnson's arguments against
+the "unities," and concludes that "there is hardly one of them which does
+not seem false or foreign to the subject." The _Critical Review_, on the
+other hand, pronounces them "worthy of Mr. Johnson's pen"; and the _London
+Magazine_ admits their force, though it wishes that Johnson had "rather
+retained the character of a reasoner than assumed that of a pleader."
+
+
+
+Richard Farmer.
+
+
+Farmer's _Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare_ was published at Cambridge
+early in January, 1767. In the Preface to the second and enlarged edition,
+which appeared in the same year, Farmer says that "the few who have been
+pleased to controvert any part of his doctrine have favoured him with
+better manners than arguments." This remark, like most of the Preface,
+appears to be directed chiefly at the prejudiced notice which appeared in
+the _Critical Review_ for January, 1767. The writer of it was well versed
+in the controversy, for he had expressed his opinion unhesitatingly in an
+earlier number, and he lost no time in advancing new evidence in
+opposition to Farmer's doctrine; but he only provided Farmer with new
+proofs, which were at once incorporated in the text of the Essay. The
+third edition, which was called for in 1789, differs from the second only
+by the inclusion of a short "advertisement" and a final note explaining
+that Farmer had abandoned his intention of publishing the _Antiquities of
+Leicester_. In the "Advertisement" he admits that "a few corrections might
+probably be made, and many additional proofs of the argument have
+necessarily occurred in more than twenty years"; but he did not think it
+necessary to make any changes. He was content to leave the book in the
+hands of the printers, and accordingly he is still described on the
+title-page as "Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge," though he had
+succeeded to the mastership of his college in 1775.
+
+Farmer had, however, already supplemented his Essay by a letter to
+Steevens, who printed it as an appendix to his edition of Johnson's
+Shakespeare in 1773. "The track of reading," says Farmer, "which I
+sometime ago endeavoured to prove more immediately necessary to a
+commentator on Shakespeare, you have very successfully followed, and have
+consequently superseded some remarks which I might otherwise have troubled
+you with. Those I now send you are such as I marked on the margin of the
+copy you were so kind to communicate to me, and bear a very small
+proportion to the miscellaneous collections of this sort which I may
+probably put together some time or other." Farmer did not carry out this
+intention, and the _Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare_ remains his only
+independent publication.
+
+
+
+Maurice Morgann.
+
+
+Morgann has himself told us in his Preface all that we know about the
+composition of his _Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff_.
+The result of a challenge arising out of a friendly conversation, it was
+written "in a very short time" in 1774, and then laid aside and almost
+forgotten. But for the advice of friends it would probably have remained
+in manuscript, and been destroyed, like his other critical works, at his
+death. On their suggestion he revised and enlarged it, as hastily as he
+had written it; and it appeared anonymously in the spring of 1777. The
+original purpose of the Essay is indicated by the motto on the title-page:
+"I am not John of Gaunt your grandfather, but yet no Coward, Hal"; but as
+Morgann wrote he passed from Falstaff to the greater theme of Falstaff's
+creator. He was persuaded to publish his Essay because, though it dealt
+nominally with one character, its main subject was the art of Shakespeare.
+For the same reason it finds a place in this volume.
+
+In 1744 Corbyn Morris had briefly analysed the character of Falstaff in
+his _Essay towards fixing the true standards of Wit, Humour, Raillery,
+Satire, and Ridicule_; Mrs. Montagu had expressed the common opinion of
+his cowardice in her _Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare_;
+the _Biographia Britannica_ had declared him to be Shakespeare's
+masterpiece; while his popularity had led Kenrick to produce in 1766
+_Falstaff's Wedding_ as a sequel to the second part of _Henry IV._; but
+Morgann's Essay is the first detailed examination of his character. He was
+afterwards the subject of papers by Cumberland in the _Observer_ (1785,
+No. 73), and by Henry Mackenzie in the _Lounger_ (1786, Nos. 68, 69), and
+in 1789 he was described by Richardson in an essay which reproduced
+Morgann's title. None of these later works have the interest attaching to
+James White's _Falstaff's Letters_ (1796).
+
+The _Essay on Falstaff_ was republished, with a short biographical
+preface, in 1820, and a third and last edition came out in 1825. What is
+apparently the first detailed criticism of it occurs in the _London
+Review_ for February, 1820.
+
+
+
+
+
+NICHOLAS ROWE: SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE &C. OF MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR.
+1709.
+
+
+It seems to be a kind of respect due to the memory of excellent men,
+especially of those whom their wit and learning have made famous, to
+deliver some account of themselves, as well as their works, to Posterity.
+For this reason, how fond do we see some people of discovering any little
+personal story of the great men of Antiquity, their families, the common
+accidents of their lives, and even their shape, make, and features have
+been the subject of critical enquiries. How trifling soever this Curiosity
+may seem to be, it is certainly very natural; and we are hardly satisfy'd
+with an account of any remarkable person, 'till we have heard him
+describ'd even to the very cloaths he wears. As for what relates to men of
+letters, the knowledge of an Author may sometimes conduce to the better
+understanding his book: And tho' the Works of Mr. _Shakespear_ may seem to
+many not to want a comment, yet I fancy some little account of the man
+himself may not be thought improper to go along with them.
+
+He was the son of Mr. _John Shakespear_, and was born at _Stratford_ upon
+_Avon_, in _Warwickshire_, in _April_ 1564. His family, as appears by the
+Register and publick Writings relating to that Town, were of good figure
+and fashion there, and are mention'd as gentlemen. His father, who was a
+considerable dealer in wool, had so large a family, ten children in all,
+that tho' he was his eldest son, he could give him no better education
+than his own employment. He had bred him, 'tis true, for some time at a
+Free-school, where 'tis probable he acquir'd that little _Latin_ he was
+master of: But the narrowness of his circumstances, and the want of his
+assistance at home, forc'd his father to withdraw him from thence, and
+unhappily prevented his further proficiency in that language. It is
+without controversie, that he had no knowledge of the writings of the
+antient poets, not only from this reason, but from his works themselves,
+where we find no traces of any thing that looks like an imitation of 'em;
+the delicacy of his taste, and the natural bent of his own great _Genius_,
+equal, if not superior to some of the best of theirs, would certainly have
+led him to read and study 'em with so much pleasure, that some of their
+fine images would naturally have insinuated themselves into, and been
+mix'd with his own writings; so that his not copying at least something
+from them, may be an argument of his never having read 'em. Whether his
+ignorance of the Antients were a disadvantage to him or no, may admit of a
+dispute: For tho' the knowledge of 'em might have made him more correct,
+yet it is not improbable but that the regularity and deference for them,
+which would have attended that correctness, might have restrain'd some of
+that fire, impetuosity, and even beautiful extravagance which we admire in
+_Shakespear_: And I believe we are better pleas'd with those thoughts,
+altogether new and uncommon, which his own imagination supply'd him so
+abundantly with, than if he had given us the most beautiful passages out
+of the _Greek_ and _Latin_ poets, and that in the most agreeable manner
+that it was possible for a master of the _English_ language to deliver
+'em. Some _Latin_ without question he did know, and one may see up and
+down in his Plays how far his reading that way went: In _Love's Labour
+lost_, the Pedant comes out with a verse of _Mantuan_; and in _Titus
+Andronicus_, one of the _Gothick_ princes, upon reading
+
+
+    Integer vitæ scelerisque purus
+    Non eget Mauri jaculis nec arcu--
+
+
+says, "_Tis a verse in_ Horace, _but he remembers it out of his_ Grammar":
+which, I suppose, was the Author's case. Whatever _Latin_ he had, 'tis
+certain he understood _French_, as may be observ'd from many words and
+sentences scatter'd up and down his Plays in that language; and especially
+from one scene in _Henry_ the Fifth written wholly in it. Upon his leaving
+school, he seems to have given intirely into that way of living which his
+father propos'd to him; and in order to settle in the world after a family
+manner, he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young. His wife was
+the daughter of one _Hathaway_, said to have been a substantial yeoman in
+the neighbourhood of _Stratford_. In this kind of settlement he continu'd
+for some time, 'till an extravagance that he was guilty of forc'd him both
+out of his country and that way of living which he had taken up; and tho'
+it seem'd at first to be a blemish upon his good manners, and a misfortune
+to him, yet it afterwards happily prov'd the occasion of exerting one of
+the greatest _Genius_'s that ever was known in dramatick Poetry. He had,
+by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company;
+and amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of Deer-stealing,
+engag'd him with them more than once in robbing a Park that belong'd to
+Sir _Thomas Lucy_ of _Cherlecot_ near _Stratford_. For this he was
+prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely; and in
+order to revenge that ill usage, he made a ballad upon him. And tho' this,
+probably the first essay of his Poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have
+been so very bitter, that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that
+degree, that he was oblig'd to leave his business and family in
+_Warwickshire_, for some time, and shelter himself in _London_.
+
+It is at this time, and upon this accident, that he is said to have made
+his first acquaintance in the Play-house. He was receiv'd into the Company
+then in being, at first in a very mean rank; but his admirable wit, and
+the natural turn of it to the stage, soon distinguish'd him, if not as an
+extraordinary Actor, yet as an excellent Writer. His name is printed, as
+the custom was in those times, amongst those of the other Players, before
+some old Plays, but without any particular account of what sort of parts
+he us'd to play; and tho' I have inquir'd, I could never meet with any
+further account of him this way, than that the top of his Performance was
+the Ghost in his own _Hamlet_. I should have been much more pleas'd to
+have learn'd from some certain authority, which was the first Play he
+wrote; it would be without doubt a pleasure to any man, curious in things
+of this kind, to see and know what was the first essay of a fancy like
+_Shakespear_'s. Perhaps we are not to look for his beginnings, like those
+of other authors, among their least perfect writings; art had so little,
+and nature so large a share in what he did, that, for ought I know, the
+performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, and had the
+most fire and strength of imagination in 'em, were the best. I would not
+be thought by this to mean, that his fancy was so loose and extravagant,
+as to be independent on the rule and government of judgment; but that what
+he thought, was commonly so great, so justly and rightly conceiv'd in it
+self, that it wanted little or no correction, and was immediately approv'd
+by an impartial judgment at the first sight. Mr. _Dryden_ seems to think
+that _Pericles_ is one of his first Plays; but there is no judgment to be
+form'd on that, since there is good reason to believe that the greatest
+part of that Play was not written by him; tho' it is own'd, some part of
+it certainly was, particularly the last Act. But tho' the order of time in
+which the several pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there
+are passages in some few of them which seem to fix their dates. So the
+_Chorus_ in the beginning of the fifth Act of _Henry_ V. by a compliment
+very handsomly turn'd to the Earl of _Essex_, shews the Play to have been
+written when that Lord was General for the Queen in _Ireland_: And his
+Elogy upon Q. _Elizabeth_, and her successor K. _James_, in the latter end
+of his _Henry_ VIII. is a proof of that Play's being written after the
+accession of the latter of those two Princes to the crown of _England_.
+Whatever the particular times of his writing were, the people of his age,
+who began to grow wonderfully fond of diversions of this kind, could not
+but be highly pleas'd to see a _Genius_ arise amongst 'em of so
+pleasurable, so rich a vein, and so plentifully capable of furnishing
+their favourite entertainments. Besides the advantages of his wit, he was
+in himself a good-natur'd man, of great sweetness in his manners, and a
+most agreeable companion; so that it is no wonder if with so many good
+qualities he made himself acquainted with the best conversations of those
+times. Queen _Elizabeth_ had several of his Plays acted before her, and
+without doubt gave him many gracious marks of her favour: It is that
+maiden Princess plainly, whom he intends by
+
+
+    ----A fair Vestal, Throned by the West.
+                            _Midsummer Night's Dream._
+
+
+And that whole passage is a compliment very properly brought in, and very
+handsomely apply'd to her. She was so well pleas'd with that admirable
+character of _Falstaff_, in the two parts of _Henry_ the Fourth, that she
+commanded him to continue it for one Play more, and to shew him in love.
+This is said to be the occasion of his writing _The Merry Wives of_
+Windsor. How well she was obey'd, the play it self is an admirable proof.
+Upon this occasion it may not be improper to observe, that this part of
+_Falstaff_ is said to have been written originally under the name of
+_Oldcastle_; some of that family being then remaining, the Queen was
+pleas'd to command him to alter it; upon which he made use of _Falstaff_.
+The present offence was indeed avoided; but I don't know whether the
+Author may not have been somewhat to blame in his second choice, since it
+is certain that Sir _John Falstaff_, who was a Knight of the Garter, and a
+Lieutenant-general, was a name of distinguish'd merit in the wars in
+_France_ in _Henry_ the Fifth's and _Henry_ the Sixth's times. What grace
+soever the Queen conferr'd upon him, it was not to her only he ow'd the
+fortune which the reputation of his wit made. He had the honour to meet
+with many great and uncommon marks of favour and friendship from the Earl
+of _Southampton_, famous in the histories of that time for his friendship
+to the unfortunate Earl of _Essex_. It was to that noble Lord that he
+dedicated his Poem of _Venus_ and _Adonis_, the only piece of his Poetry
+which he ever publish'd himself, tho' many of his Plays were
+surrepticiously and lamely printed in his life-time. There is one instance
+so singular in the magnificence of this Patron of _Shakespear_'s, that if
+I had not been assur'd that the story was handed down by Sir _William
+D'Avenant_, who was probably very well acquainted with his affairs, I
+should not have ventur'd to have inserted, that my Lord _Southampton_ at
+one time gave him a thousand pounds, to enable him to go through with a
+purchase which he heard he had a mind to: A bounty very great, and very
+rare at any time, and almost equal to that profuse generosity the present
+age has shewn to _French_ Dancers and _Italian_ Eunuchs.
+
+What particular habitude or friendships he contracted with private men, I
+have not been able to learn, more than that every one who had a true taste
+of merit, and could distinguish men, had generally a just value and esteem
+for him. His exceeding candor and good nature must certainly have inclin'd
+all the gentler part of the world to love him, as the power of his wit
+oblig'd the men of the most delicate knowledge and polite learning to
+admire him. Amongst these was the incomparable Mr. _Edmond Spencer_, who
+speaks of him in his _Tears of the Muses_, not only with the praises due
+to a good Poet, but even lamenting his absence with the tenderness of a
+friend. The passage is in _Thalia's_ Complaint for the Decay of Dramatick
+Poetry, and the Contempt the Stage then lay under, amongst his
+Miscellaneous Works, _p._ 147.
+
+
+    And he the Man whom Nature's self had made
+    To mock her self, and Truth to imitate
+    With friendly Counter under mimick Shade,
+    Our pleasant _Willy_, ah! is dead of late:
+    With whom all Joy and jolly Merriment
+    Is also deaded, and in Dolour drent.
+
+    Instead thereof, scoffing Scurrility
+    And scorning Folly with Contempt is crept,
+    Rolling in Rhimes of shameless Ribaudry,
+    Without Regard or due _Decorum_ kept;
+    Each idle Wit at will presumes to make,
+    And doth the Learned's Task upon him take.
+
+    But that same gentle Spirit, from whose Pen
+    Large Streams of Honey and sweet _Nectar_ flow,
+    Scorning the Boldness of such base-born Men,
+    Which dare their Follies forth so rashly throw;
+    Doth rather choose to sit in idle Cell,
+    Than so himself to Mockery to sell.
+
+
+I know some people have been of opinion, that _Shakespear_ is not meant by
+_Willy_ in the first _stanza_ of these verses, because _Spencer_'s death
+happen'd twenty years before _Shakespear_'s. But, besides that the
+character is not applicable to any man of that time but himself, it is
+plain by the last _stanza_ that Mr. _Spencer_ does not mean that he was
+then really dead, but only that he had withdrawn himself from the publick,
+or at least with-held his hand from writing, out of a disgust he had taken
+at the then ill taste of the Town, and the mean condition of the Stage.
+Mr. _Dryden_ was always of opinion these verses were meant of
+_Shakespear_; and 'tis highly probable they were so, since he was three
+and thirty years old at _Spencer_'s death; and his reputation in Poetry
+must have been great enough before that time to have deserv'd what is here
+said of him. His acquaintance with _Ben Johnson_ began with a remarkable
+piece of humanity and good nature; Mr. _Johnson_, who was at that time
+altogether unknown to the world, had offer'd one of his Plays to the
+Players, in order to have it acted; and the persons into whose hands it
+was put, after having turn'd it carelessly and superciliously over, were
+just upon returning it to him with an ill-natur'd answer, that it would be
+of no service to their Company, when _Shakespear_ luckily cast his eye
+upon it, and found something so well in it as to engage him first to read
+it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. _Johnson_ and his writings to
+the publick. After this they were profess'd friends; tho' I don't know
+whether the other ever made him an equal return of gentleness and
+sincerity. _Ben_ was naturally proud and insolent, and in the days of his
+reputation did so far take upon him the supremacy in wit, that he could
+not but look with an evil eye upon any one that seem'd to stand in
+competition with him. And if at times he has affected to commend him, it
+has always been with some reserve, insinuating his uncorrectness, a
+careless manner of writing, and want of judgment; the praise of seldom
+altering or blotting out what he writ, which was given him by the Players
+who were the first Publishers of his Works after his death, was what
+_Johnson_ could not bear; he thought it impossible, perhaps, for another
+man to strike out the greatest thoughts in the finest expression, and to
+reach those excellencies of Poetry with the ease of a first imagination,
+which himself with infinite labour and study could but hardly attain to.
+_Johnson_ was certainly a very good scholar, and in that had the advantage
+of _Shakespear_; tho' at the same time I believe it must be allow'd, that
+what Nature gave the latter, was more than a ballance for what Books had
+given the former; and the judgment of a great man upon this occasion was,
+I think, very just and proper. In a conversation between Sir _John
+Suckling_, Sir _William D'Avenant_, _Endymion Porter_, Mr. _Hales_ of
+_Eaton_, and _Ben Johnson_; Sir _John Suckling_, who was a profess'd
+admirer of _Shakespear_, had undertaken his defence against _Ben Johnson_
+with some warmth; Mr. _Hales_, who had sat still for some time, hearing
+_Ben_ frequently reproaching him with the want of learning, and ignorance
+of the Antients, told him at last, _That if Mr._ Shakespear _had not read
+the Antients, he had likewise not stollen any thing from 'em_ (a fault the
+other made no conscience of); _and that if he would produce any one Topick
+finely treated by any one of them, he would undertake to shew something
+upon the same subject at least as well written by_ Shakespear. _Johnson_
+did indeed take a large liberty, even to the transcribing and translating
+of whole scenes together; and sometimes, with all deference to so great a
+name as his, not altogether for the advantage of the authors of whom he
+borrow'd. And if _Augustus_ and _Virgil_ were really what he has made 'em
+in a scene of his _Poetaster_, they are as odd an Emperor and a Poet as
+ever met. _Shakespear_, on the other hand, was beholding to no body
+farther than the foundation of the tale, the incidents were often his own,
+and the writing intirely so. There is one Play of his, indeed, _The Comedy
+of Errors_, in a great measure taken from the _Menæchmi_ of _Plautus_. How
+that happen'd, I cannot easily divine, since, as I hinted before, I do not
+take him to have been master of _Latin_ enough to read it in the original,
+and I know of no translation of _Plautus_ so old as his time.
+
+As I have not propos'd to my self to enter into a large and compleat
+criticism upon _Shakespear_'s Works, so I suppose it will neither be
+expected that I should take notice of the severe remarks that have been
+formerly made upon him by Mr. _Rhymer_. I must confess, I can't very well
+see what could be the reason of his animadverting with so much sharpness,
+upon the faults of a man excellent on most occasions, and whom all the
+world ever was and will be inclin'd to have an esteem and veneration for.
+If it was to shew his own knowledge in the Art of Poetry, besides that
+there is a vanity in making that only his design, I question if there be
+not many imperfections as well in those schemes and precepts he has given
+for the direction of others, as well as in that sample of Tragedy which he
+has written to shew the excellency of his own _Genius_. If he had a pique
+against the man, and wrote on purpose to ruin a reputation so well
+establish'd, he has had the mortification to fail altogether in his
+attempt, and to see the world at least as fond of _Shakespear_ as of his
+Critique. But I won't believe a gentleman, and a good-natur'd man, capable
+of the last intention. Whatever may have been his meaning, finding fault
+is certainly the easiest task of knowledge, and commonly those men of good
+judgment, who are likewise of good and gentle dispositions, abandon this
+ungrateful province to the tyranny of pedants. If one would enter into the
+beauties of _Shakespear_, there is a much larger, as well as a more
+delightful field; but as I won't prescribe to the tastes of other people,
+so I will only take the liberty, with all due submission to the judgments
+of others, to observe some of those things I have been pleas'd with in
+looking him over.
+
+His Plays are properly to be distinguish'd only into Comedies and
+Tragedies. Those which are called Histories, and even some of his
+Comedies, are really Tragedies, with a run or mixture of Comedy amongst
+'em. That way of Trage-comedy was the common mistake of that age, and is
+indeed become so agreeable to the _English_ taste, that tho' the severer
+Critiques among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences
+seem to be better pleas'd with it than with an exact Tragedy. _The Merry
+Wives of_ Windsor, _The Comedy of Errors_, and _The Taming of the Shrew_,
+are all pure Comedy; the rest, however they are call'd, have something of
+both kinds. 'Tis not very easy to determine which way of writing he was
+most excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his
+comical humours; and tho' they did not then strike at all ranks of people,
+as the Satyr of the present age has taken the liberty to do, yet there is
+a pleasing and a well-distinguish'd variety in those characters which he
+thought fit to meddle with. _Falstaff_ is allow'd by every body to be a
+master-piece; the Character is always well-sustain'd, tho' drawn out into
+the length of three Plays; and even the account of his death, given by his
+old landlady Mrs. _Quickly_, in the first act of _Henry_ V., tho' it be
+extremely natural, is yet as diverting as any part of his life. If there
+be any fault in the draught he has made of this lewd old fellow, it is,
+that tho' he has made him a thief, lying, cowardly, vain-glorious, and in
+short every way vicious, yet he has given him so much wit as to make him
+almost too agreeable; and I don't know whether some people have not, in
+remembrance of the diversion he had formerly afforded 'em, been sorry to
+see his friend _Hal_ use him so scurvily, when he comes to the crown in
+the end of the second part of _Henry_ the Fourth. Amongst other
+extravagances, in _The Merry Wives of_ Windsor, he has made him a
+Deer-stealer, that he might at the same time remember his _Warwickshire_
+prosecutor, under the name of Justice _Shallow_; he has given him very
+near the same coat of arms which _Dugdale_, in his Antiquities of that
+county, describes for a family there, and makes the _Welsh_ parson descant
+very pleasantly upon 'em. That whole play is admirable; the humours are
+various and well oppos'd; the main design, which is to cure _Ford_ of his
+unreasonable jealousie, is extremely well conducted. _Falstaff's
+Billet-Doux_, and Master _Slender_'s
+
+
+    Ah! Sweet _Ann Page_!
+
+
+are very good expressions of love in their way. In _Twelfth-Night_ there
+is something singularly ridiculous and pleasant in the fantastical steward
+_Malvolio_. The parasite and the vain-glorious in _Parolles_, in _All's
+Well that ends Well_, is as good as any thing of that kind in _Plautus_ or
+_Terence_. _Petruchio_, in _The Taming of the Shrew_, is an uncommon piece
+of humour. The conversation of _Benedick_ and _Beatrice_, in _Much Ado
+about Nothing_, and of _Rosalind_ in _As you like it_, have much wit and
+sprightliness all along. His clowns, without which character there was
+hardly any play writ in that time, are all very entertaining: And, I
+believe, _Thersites_ in _Troilus_ and _Cressida_, and _Apemantus_ in
+_Timon_, will be allow'd to be master-pieces of ill nature and satyrical
+snarling. To these I might add that incomparable character of _Shylock_
+the _Jew_ in _The Merchant of_ Venice; but tho' we have seen that play
+receiv'd and acted as a Comedy, and the part of the _Jew_ perform'd by an
+excellent Comedian, yet I cannot but think it was design'd tragically by
+the Author. There appears in it such a deadly spirit of revenge, such a
+savage fierceness and fellness, and such a bloody designation of cruelty
+and mischief, as cannot agree either with the stile or characters of
+Comedy. The Play it self, take it all together, seems to me to be one of
+the most finish'd of any of _Shakespear_'s. The tale indeed, in that part
+relating to the caskets, and the extravagant and unusual kind of bond
+given by _Antonio_, is a little too much remov'd from the rules of
+probability: But taking the fact for granted, we must allow it to be very
+beautifully written. There is something in the friendship of _Antonio_ to
+_Bassanio_ very great, generous, and tender. The whole fourth act,
+supposing, as I said, the fact to be probable, is extremely fine. But
+there are two passages that deserve a particular notice. The first is,
+what _Portia_ says in praise of mercy, and the other on the power of
+musick. The melancholy of _Jaques_, in _As you like it_, is as singular
+and odd as it is diverting. And if what _Horace_ says,
+
+
+    Difficile est proprie communia dicere,
+
+
+'twill be a hard task for any one to go beyond him in the description of
+the several degrees and ages of man's life, tho' the thought be old, and
+common enough.
+
+
+    ----All the World's a Stage,
+    And all the men and women meerly Players;
+    They have their Exits and their Entrances,
+    And one man in his time plays many Parts,
+    His Acts being seven Ages. At first the Infant
+    Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms:
+    And then, the whining School-boy with his satchel,
+    And shining morning-face, creeping like snail
+    Unwillingly to school. And then the Lover
+    Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
+    Made to his Mistress' eye-brow. Then a Soldier
+    Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the Pard,
+    Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
+    Seeking the bubble Reputation
+    Ev'n in the cannon's mouth. And then the Justice
+    In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,
+    With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
+    Full of wise saws and modern instances;
+    And so he plays his part. The sixth Age shifts
+    Into the lean and slipper'd Pantaloon,
+    With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
+    His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
+    For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice
+    Turning again tow'rd childish treble, pipes
+    And whistles in his sound: Last Scene of all,
+    That ends this strange eventful History,
+    Is second childishness and meer oblivion,
+    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans ev'ry thing.
+
+
+His Images are indeed ev'ry where so lively, that the thing he would
+represent stands full before you, and you possess ev'ry part of it. I will
+venture to point out one more, which is, I think, as strong and as
+uncommon as any thing I ever saw; 'tis an image of Patience. Speaking of a
+maid in love, he says,
+
+
+    ----She never told her love,
+    But let concealment, like a worm i'th' bud,
+    Feed on her damask cheek: She pin'd in thought,
+    And sate like _Patience_ on a monument,
+    Smiling at _Grief_.
+
+
+What an Image is here given! and what a task would it have been for the
+greatest masters of _Greece_ and _Rome_ to have express'd the passions
+design'd by this sketch of Statuary! The stile of his Comedy is, in
+general, natural to the characters, and easie in it self; and the wit most
+commonly sprightly and pleasing, except in those places where he runs into
+dogrel rhymes, as in _The Comedy of Errors_, and a passage or two in some
+other plays. As for his jingling sometimes, and playing upon words, it was
+the common vice of the age he liv'd in: And if we find it in the Pulpit,
+made use of as an ornament to the Sermons of some of the gravest Divines
+of those times; perhaps it may not be thought too light for the Stage.
+
+But certainly the greatness of this Author's genius do's no where so much
+appear, as where he gives his imagination an entire loose, and raises his
+fancy to a flight above mankind and the limits of the visible world. Such
+are his attempts in _The Tempest_, _Midsummer Nights Dream_, _Macbeth_,
+and _Hamlet_. Of these, _The Tempest_, however it comes to be plac'd the
+first by the former publishers of his works, can never have been the first
+written by him: It seems to me as perfect in its kind, as almost any thing
+we have of his. One may observe, that the Unities are kept here, with an
+exactness uncommon to the liberties of his writing; tho' that was what, I
+suppose, he valu'd himself least upon, since his excellencies were all of
+another kind. I am very sensible that he do's, in this play, depart too
+much from that likeness to truth which ought to be observ'd in these sort
+of writings; yet he do's it so very finely, that one is easily drawn in to
+have more faith for his sake, than reason does well allow of. His Magick
+has something in it very solemn and very poetical: And that extravagant
+character of _Caliban_ is mighty well sustain'd, shews a wonderful
+invention in the Author, who could strike out such a particular wild
+image, and is certainly one of the finest and most uncommon Grotesques
+that was ever seen. The observation, which I have been inform'd(36) three
+very great men concurr'd in making upon this part, was extremely just:
+_That_ Shakespear _had not only found out a new Character in his_ Caliban,
+_but had also devis'd and adapted a new manner of Language for that
+Character_. Among the particular beauties of this piece, I think one may
+be allow'd to point out the tale of _Prospero_ in the first Act; his
+speech to _Ferdinand_ in the fourth, upon the breaking up the masque of
+_Juno_ and _Ceres_; and that in the fifth, when he dissolves his charms,
+and resolves to break his magick rod. This Play has been alter'd by Sir
+_William D'Avenant_ and Mr. _Dryden_; and tho' I won't arraign the
+judgment of those two great men, yet I think I may be allow'd to say, that
+there are some things left out by them, that might, and even ought to have
+been kept in. Mr. _Dryden_ was an admirer of our Author, and, indeed, he
+owed him a great deal, as those who have read them both may very easily
+observe. And, I think, in justice to 'em both, I should not on this
+occasion omit what Mr. _Dryden_ has said of him.
+
+
+    _Shakespear_, who, taught by none, did first impart
+    To _Fletcher_ Wit, to lab'ring _Johnson_ Art:
+    He, monarch-like, gave those his subjects Law,
+    And is that Nature which they paint and draw.
+    _Fletcher_ reach'd that which on his heights did grow,
+    Whilst _Johnson_ crept and gather'd all below:
+    This did his Love, and this his Mirth digest,
+    One imitates him most, the other best.
+    If they have since out-writ all other men,
+    'Tis with the drops which fell from _Shakespear_'s pen.
+    The(37) Storm which vanish'd on the neighb'ring shoar,
+    Was taught by _Shakespear_'s Tempest first to roar.
+    That innocence and beauty which did smile
+    In _Fletcher_, grew on this _Enchanted Isle_.
+    But _Shakespear_'s Magick could not copied be,
+    Within that Circle none durst walk but he.
+    I must confess 'twas bold, nor would you now
+    That liberty to vulgar Wits allow,
+    Which works by Magick supernatural things:
+    But _Shakespear_'s Pow'r is Sacred as a King's.
+
+    Prologue to _The Tempest_, as it is alter'd by Mr. _Dryden_.
+
+
+It is the same magick that raises the Fairies in _Midsummer Night's
+Dream_, the Witches in _Macbeth_, and the Ghost in _Hamlet_, with thoughts
+and language so proper to the parts they sustain, and so peculiar to the
+talent of this Writer. But of the two last of these Plays I shall have
+occasion to take notice, among the Tragedies of Mr. _Shakespear_. If one
+undertook to examine the greatest part of these by those rules which are
+establish'd by _Aristotle_, and taken from the model of the _Grecian_
+stage, it would be no very hard task to find a great many faults: But as
+_Shakespear_ liv'd under a kind of mere light of nature, and had never
+been made acquainted with the regularity of those written precepts, so it
+would be hard to judge him by a law he knew nothing of. We are to consider
+him as a man that liv'd in a state of almost universal licence and
+ignorance: There was no establish'd judge, but every one took the liberty
+to write according to the dictates of his own fancy. When one considers
+that there is not one play before him of a reputation good enough to
+entitle it to an appearance on the present Stage, it cannot but be a
+matter of great wonder that he should advance dramatick Poetry so far as
+he did. The Fable is what is generally plac'd the first, among those that
+are reckon'd the constituent parts of a Tragick or Heroick Poem; not,
+perhaps, as it is the most difficult or beautiful, but as it is the first
+properly to be thought of in the contrivance and course of the whole; and
+with the Fable ought to be consider'd the fit Disposition, Order, and
+Conduct of its several parts. As it is not in this province of the _Drama_
+that the strength and mastery of _Shakespear_ lay, so I shall not
+undertake the tedious and ill-natur'd trouble to point out the several
+faults he was guilty of in it. His Tales were seldom invented, but rather
+taken either from true History, or Novels and Romances: And he commonly
+made use of 'em in that order, with those incidents, and that extent of
+time in which he found 'em in the Authors from whence he borrow'd them. So
+_The Winter's Tale_, which is taken from an old book, call'd _The
+Delectable History of_ Dorastus _and_ Faunia, contains the space of
+sixteen or seventeen years, and the Scene is sometimes laid in _Bohemia_,
+and sometimes in _Sicily_, according to the original order of the Story.
+Almost all his historical Plays comprehend a great length of time, and
+very different and distinct places: And in his _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_,
+the Scene travels over the greatest part of the _Roman_ empire. But in
+recompence for his carelessness in this point, when he comes to another
+part of the _Drama, The Manners of his Characters, in acting or speaking
+what is proper for them, and fit to be shown by the Poet_, he may be
+generally justify'd, and in very many places greatly commended. For those
+Plays which he has taken from the _English_ or _Roman_ history, let any
+man compare 'em, and he will find the character as exact in the Poet as
+the Historian. He seems indeed so far from proposing to himself any one
+action for a Subject, that the Title very often tells you, 'tis _The Life
+of King_ John, _King_ Richard, _&c._ What can be more agreeable to the
+idea our historians give of _Henry_ the Sixth, than the picture
+_Shakespear_ has drawn of him! His Manners are every where exactly the
+same with the story; one finds him still describ'd with simplicity,
+passive sanctity, want of courage, weakness of mind, and easie submission
+to the governance of an imperious Wife, or prevailing Faction: Tho' at the
+same time the Poet do's justice to his good qualities, and moves the pity
+of his audience for him, by showing him pious, disinterested, a contemner
+of the things of this world, and wholly resign'd to the severest
+dispensations of God's providence. There is a short Scene in the second
+part of _Henry_ VI., which I cannot but think admirable in its kind.
+Cardinal _Beaufort_, who had murder'd the Duke of _Gloucester_, is shewn
+in the last agonies on his death-bed, with the good King praying over him.
+There is so much terror in one, so much tenderness and moving piety in the
+other, as must touch any one who is capable either of fear or pity. In his
+_Henry_ VIII. that Prince is drawn with that greatness of mind, and all
+those good qualities which are attributed to him in any account of his
+reign. If his faults are not shewn in an equal degree, and the shades in
+this picture do not bear a just proportion to the lights, it is not that
+the Artist wanted either colours or skill in the disposition of 'em; but
+the truth, I believe, might be, that he forbore doing it out of regard to
+Queen _Elizabeth_, since it could have been no very great respect to the
+memory of his Mistress, to have expos'd some certain parts of her father's
+life upon the stage. He has dealt much more freely with the Minister of
+that great King, and certainly nothing was ever more justly written, than
+the character of Cardinal _Wolsey_. He has shewn him tyrannical, cruel,
+and insolent in his prosperity; and yet, by a wonderful address, he makes
+his fall and ruin the subject of general compassion. The whole man, with
+his vices and virtues, is finely and exactly describ'd in the second Scene
+of the fourth Act. The distresses likewise of Queen _Katherine_, in this
+Play, are very movingly touch'd; and tho' the art of the Poet has skreen'd
+King _Henry_ from any gross imputation of injustice, yet one is inclin'd
+to wish, the Queen had met with a fortune more worthy of her birth and
+virtue. Nor are the Manners, proper to the persons represented, less
+justly observ'd in those characters taken from the _Roman_ History; and of
+this, the fierceness and impatience of _Coriolanus_, his courage and
+disdain of the common people, the virtue and philosophical temper of
+_Brutus_, and the irregular greatness of mind in _M. Antony_, are
+beautiful proofs. For the two last especially, you find 'em exactly as
+they are describ'd by _Plutarch_, from whom certainly _Shakespear_ copy'd
+'em. He has indeed follow'd his original pretty close, and taken in
+several little incidents that might have been spar'd in a Play. But, as I
+hinted before, his design seems most commonly rather to describe those
+great men in the several fortunes and accidents of their lives, than to
+take any single great action, and form his work simply upon that. However,
+there are some of his pieces, where the Fable is founded upon one action
+only. Such are more especially, _Romeo_ and _Juliet_, _Hamlet_, and
+_Othello_. The design in _Romeo_ and _Juliet_ is plainly the punishment of
+their two families, for the unreasonable feuds and animosities that had
+been so long kept up between 'em, and occasion'd the effusion of so much
+blood. In the management of this story, he has shewn something wonderfully
+tender and passionate in the love-part, and very pitiful in the distress.
+_Hamlet_ is founded on much the same Tale with the _Electra_ of
+_Sophocles_. In each of 'em a young Prince is engag'd to revenge the death
+of his father, their mothers are equally guilty, are both concern'd in the
+murder of their husbands, and are afterwards married to the murderers.
+There is in the first part of the _Greek_ Tragedy, something very moving
+in the grief of _Electra_; but as Mr. _D'Acier_ has observ'd, there is
+something very unnatural and shocking in the Manners he has given that
+Princess and _Orestes_ in the latter part. _Orestes_ embrues his hands in
+the blood of his own mother; and that barbarous action is perform'd, tho'
+not immediately upon the stage, yet so near, that the audience hear
+_Clytemnestra_ crying out to _Ægysthus_ for help, and to her son for
+mercy: While _Electra_, her daughter, and a Princess, both of them
+characters that ought to have appear'd with more decency, stands upon the
+stage and encourages her brother in the parricide. What horror does this
+not raise! _Clytemnestra_ was a wicked woman, and had deserv'd to die;
+nay, in the truth of the story, she was kill'd by her own son; but to
+represent an action of this kind on the stage, is certainly an offence
+against those rules of manners proper to the persons, that ought to be
+observ'd there. On the contrary, let us only look a little on the conduct
+of _Shakespear_. _Hamlet_ is represented with the same piety towards his
+father, and resolution to revenge his death, as _Orestes_; he has the same
+abhorrence for his mother's guilt, which, to provoke him the more, is
+heighten'd by incest: But 'tis with wonderful art and justness of
+judgment, that the Poet restrains him from doing violence to his mother.
+To prevent any thing of that kind, he makes his father's Ghost forbid that
+part of his vengeance.
+
+
+    But howsoever thou pursu'st this Act,
+    Taint not thy mind; nor let thy soul contrive
+    Against thy mother ought; leave her to Heav'n,
+    And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
+    To prick and sting her.
+
+
+This is to distinguish rightly between _Horror_ and _Terror_. The latter
+is a proper passion of Tragedy, but the former ought always to be
+carefully avoided. And certainly no dramatick Writer ever succeeded better
+in raising _Terror_ in the minds of an audience than _Shakespear_ has
+done. The whole Tragedy of _Macbeth_, but more especially the scene where
+the King is murder'd, in the second Act, as well as this Play, is a noble
+proof of that manly spirit with which he writ; and both shew how powerful
+he was, in giving the strongest motions to our souls that they are capable
+of. I cannot leave _Hamlet_ without taking notice of the advantage with
+which we have seen this Master-piece of _Shakespear_ distinguish it self
+upon the stage, by Mr. _Betterton_'s fine performance of that part: A man
+who, tho' he had no other good qualities, as he has a great many, must
+have made his way into the esteem of all men of letters, by this only
+excellency. No man is better acquainted with _Shakespear_'s manner of
+expression, and indeed he has study'd him so well, and is so much a master
+of him, that whatever part of his he performs, he does it as if it had
+been written on purpose for him, and that the Author had exactly conceiv'd
+it as he plays it. I must own a particular obligation to him, for the most
+considerable part of the passages relating to this life, which I have here
+transmitted to the publick; his veneration for the memory of _Shakespear_
+having engaged him to make a journey into _Warwickshire_, on purpose to
+gather up what remains he could of a name for which he had so great a
+value. Since I had at first resolv'd not to enter into any critical
+controversie, I won't pretend to enquire into the justness of Mr.
+_Rhymer_'s Remarks on _Othello_; he has certainly pointed out some faults
+very judiciously; and indeed they are such as most people will agree, with
+him, to be faults: But I wish he would likewise have observ'd some of the
+beauties too; as I think it became an exact and equal Critique to do. It
+seems strange that he should allow nothing good in the whole: If the Fable
+and Incidents are not to his taste, yet the Thoughts are almost every
+where very noble, and the Diction manly and proper. These last, indeed,
+are parts of _Shakespear_'s praise, which it would be very hard to dispute
+with him. His Sentiments and Images of things are great and natural; and
+his Expression (tho' perhaps in some instances a little irregular) just,
+and rais'd in proportion to his subject and occasion. It would be even
+endless to mention the particular instances that might be given of this
+kind: But his Book is in the possession of the publick, and 'twill be hard
+to dip into any part of it, without finding what I have said of him made
+good.
+
+The latter part of his life was spent, as all men of good sense will wish
+theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends.
+He had the good fortune to gather an estate equal to his occasion, and, in
+that, to his wish; and is said to have spent some years before his death
+at his native _Stratford_. His pleasurable wit, and good nature, engag'd
+him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship of the
+gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Amongst them, it is a story almost still
+remember'd in that country, that he had a particular intimacy with Mr.
+_Combe_, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and usury: It
+happen'd, that in a pleasant conversation amongst their common friends,
+Mr. _Combe_ told _Shakespear_ in a laughing manner, that he fancy'd he
+intended to write his Epitaph, if he happen'd to out-live him; and since
+he could not know what might be said of him when he was dead, he desir'd
+it might be done immediately: Upon which _Shakespear_ gave him these four
+verses.
+
+
+    Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd,
+    'Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not sav'd:
+    If any man ask, Who lies in this tomb?
+    Oh! ho! quoth the devil, 'tis my _John-a-Combe_.
+
+
+But the sharpness of the Satyr is said to have stung the man so severely,
+that he never forgave it.
+
+He dy'd in the 53d year of his age, and was bury'd on the north side of
+the chancel, in the great church at _Stratford_, where a monument, as
+engrav'd in the plate, is plac'd in the wall. On his Grave-stone
+underneath is,
+
+
+    Good friend, for Jesus sake, forbear
+    To dig the dust inclosed here.
+    Blest be the man that spares these stones,
+    And curst be he that moves my bones.
+
+
+He had three daughters, of which two liv'd to be marry'd; _Judith_, the
+elder, to one Mr. _Thomas Quiney_, by whom she had three Sons, who all
+dy'd without children; and _Susannah_, who was his favourite, to Dr. _John
+Hall_, a physician of good reputation in that country. She left one child
+only, a daughter, who was marry'd first to _Thomas Nash_, Esq; and
+afterwards to Sir _John Bernard_ of _Abington_, but dy'd likewise without
+issue.
+
+This is what I could learn of any note, either relating to himself or
+family: The character of the man is best seen in his writings. But since
+_Ben Johnson_ has made a sort of an essay towards it in his _Discoveries_,
+tho', as I have before hinted, he was not very cordial in his friendship,
+I will venture to give it in his words.
+
+"I remember the Players have often mention'd it as an honour to
+_Shakespear_, that in writing (whatsoever he penn'd) he never blotted out
+a line. My answer hath been, _Would he had blotted a thousand_, which they
+thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their
+ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein
+he most faulted: And to justifie mine own candor (for I lov'd the man, and
+do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any). He was,
+indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature, had an excellent fancy,
+brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flow'd with that
+facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopp'd:
+_Sufflaminandus erat_, as _Augustus_ said of _Haterius_. His wit was in
+his own power, would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell
+into those things could not escape laughter; as when he said in the person
+of _Cæsar_, one speaking to him,
+
+
+    _Cæsar_ thou dost me wrong.
+
+
+He reply'd:
+
+
+    _Cæsar_ did never wrong, but with just cause.
+
+
+and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeem'd his vices with his
+virtues: There was ever more in him to be prais'd than to be pardon'd."
+
+As for the passage which he mentions out of _Shakespear_, there is
+somewhat like it in _Julius Cæsar_, but without the absurdity; nor did I
+ever meet with it in any edition that I have seen, as quoted by Mr.
+_Johnson_. Besides his plays in this edition, there are two or three
+ascrib'd to him by Mr. _Langbain_, which I have never seen, and know
+nothing of. He writ likewise, _Venus_ and _Adonis_, and _Tarquin_ and
+_Lucrece_, in stanza's, which have been printed in a late collection of
+Poems. As to the character given of him by _Ben Johnson_, there is a good
+deal true in it: But I believe it may be as well express'd by what
+_Horace_ says of the first _Romans_, who wrote Tragedy upon the _Greek_
+models (or indeed translated 'em), in his epistle to _Augustus_.
+
+
+    ---- Natura sublimis & Acer,
+    Nam spirat Tragicum satis & feliciter Audet,
+    Sed turpem putat in Chartis metuitque Lituram.
+
+
+There is a Book of Poems, publish'd in 1640, under the name of Mr.
+_William Shakespear_, but as I have but very lately seen it, without an
+opportunity of making any judgment upon it, I won't pretend to determine,
+whether it be his or no.
+
+
+
+
+
+JOHN DENNIS: ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS OF SHAKESPEARE. 1711.
+
+
+
+
+Letter I.
+
+
+_Sir_, Feb. 1. 1710/11.
+
+I here send you the Tragedy of _Coriolanus_, which I have alter'd from the
+Original of _Shakespear_, and with it a short Account of the Genius and
+Writings of that Author, both which you desired me to send to you the last
+time I had the good Fortune to see you. But I send them both upon this
+condition, that you will with your usual Sincerity tell me your Sentiments
+both of the Poem and of the Criticism.
+
+_Shakespear_ was one of the greatest Genius's that the World e'er saw for
+the Tragick Stage. Tho' he lay under greater Disadvantages than any of his
+Successors, yet had he greater and more genuine Beauties than the best and
+greatest of them. And what makes the brightest Glory of his Character,
+those Beauties were entirely his own, and owing to the Force of his own
+Nature; whereas his Faults were owing to his Education, and to the Age
+that he liv'd in. One may say of him as they did of _Homer_, that he had
+none to imitate, and is himself inimitable. His Imaginations were often as
+just, as they were bold and strong. He had a natural Discretion which
+never cou'd have been taught him, and his Judgment was strong and
+penetrating. He seems to have wanted nothing but Time and Leisure for
+Thought, to have found out those Rules of which he appears so ignorant.
+His Characters are always drawn justly, exactly, graphically, except where
+he fail'd by not knowing History or the Poetical Art. He has for the most
+part more fairly distinguish'd them than any of his Successors have done,
+who have falsified them, or confounded them, by making Love the
+predominant Quality in all. He had so fine a Talent for touching the
+Passions, and they are so lively in him, and so truly in Nature, that they
+often touch us more without their due Preparations, than those of other
+Tragick Poets, who have all the Beauty of Design and all the Advantage of
+Incidents. His Master-Passion was Terror, which he has often mov'd so
+powerfully and so wonderfully, that we may justly conclude, that if he had
+had the Advantage of Art and Learning, he wou'd have surpass'd the very
+best and strongest of the Ancients. His Paintings are often so beautiful
+and so lively, so graceful and so powerful, especially where he uses them
+in order to move Terror, that there is nothing perhaps more accomplish'd
+in our _English_ Poetry. His Sentiments for the most part in his best
+Tragedies, are noble, generous, easie, and natural, and adapted to the
+Persons who use them. His Expression is in many Places good and pure after
+a hundred Years; simple tho' elevated, graceful tho' bold, and easie tho'
+strong. He seems to have been the very Original of our _English_ Tragical
+Harmony; that is the Harmony of Blank Verse, diversifyed often by
+Dissyllable and Trissyllable Terminations. For that Diversity
+distinguishes it from Heroick Harmony, and, 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.
+
+If _Shakespear_ had these great Qualities by Nature, what would he not
+have been, if he had join'd to so happy a Genius Learning and the Poetical
+Art? For want of the latter, our Author has sometimes made gross Mistakes
+in the Characters which he has drawn from History, against the Equality
+and Conveniency of Manners of his Dramatical Persons. Witness _Menenius_
+in the following Tragedy, whom he has made an errant Buffoon, which is a
+great Absurdity. For he might as well have imagin'd a grave majestick
+_Jack-Pudding_, as a Buffoon in a _Roman_ Senator. _Aufidius_ the General
+of the _Volscians_ is shewn a base and a profligate Villain. He has
+offended against the Equality of the Manners even in his Hero himself. For
+_Coriolanus_ who in the first part of the Tragedy is shewn so open, so
+frank, so violent, and so magnanimous, is represented in the latter part
+by _Aufidius_, which is contradicted by no one, a flattering, fawning,
+cringing, insinuating Traytor.
+
+For want of this Poetical Art, _Shakespear_ has introduced things into his
+Tragedies, which are against the Dignity of that noble Poem, as the Rabble
+in _Julius Cæsar_, and that in _Coriolanus_; tho' that in _Coriolanus_
+offends not only against the Dignity of Tragedy, but against the Truth of
+History likewise, and the Customs of Ancient _Rome_, and the Majesty of
+the _Roman_ People, as we shall have occasion to shew anon.
+
+For want of this Art, he has made his Incidents less moving, less
+surprizing, and less wonderful. He has been so far from seeking those fine
+Occasions to move with which an Action furnish'd according to Art would
+have furnish'd him, that he seems rather to have industriously avoided
+them. He makes _Coriolanus_, upon his Sentence of Banishment, take his
+leave of his Wife and his Mother out of sight of the Audience, and so has
+purposely as it were avoided a great occasion to move.
+
+If we are willing to allow that _Shakespear_, by sticking to the bare
+Events of History, has mov'd more than any of his Successors, yet his just
+Admirers must confess, that if he had had the Poetical Art, he would have
+mov'd ten times more. For 'tis impossible that by a bare Historical Play
+he could move so much as he would have done by a Fable.
+
+We find that a Romance entertains the generality of Mankind with more
+Satisfaction than History, if they read only to be entertain'd; but if
+they read History thro' Pride or Ambition, they bring their Passions along
+with them, and that alters the case. Nothing is more plain than that even
+in an Historical Relation some Parts of it, and some Events, please more
+than others. And therefore a Man of Judgment, who sees why they do so, may
+in forming a Fable, and disposing an Action, please more than an Historian
+can do. For the just Fiction of a Fable moves us more than an Historical
+Relation can do, for the two following Reasons: First, by reason of the
+Communication and mutual Dependence of its Parts. For if Passion springs
+from Motion, then the Obstruction of that Motion or a counter Motion must
+obstruct and check the Passion: And therefore an Historian and a Writer of
+Historical Plays, passing from Events of one nature to Events of another
+nature without a due Preparation, must of necessity stifle and confound
+one Passion by another. The second Reason why the Fiction of a Fable
+pleases us more than an Historical Relation can do, is, because in an
+Historical Relation we seldom are acquainted with the true Causes of
+Events, whereas in a feign'd Action which is duly constituted, that is,
+which has a just beginning, those Causes always appear. For 'tis
+observable, that, both in a Poetical Fiction and an Historical Relation,
+those Events are the most entertaining, the most surprizing, and the most
+wonderful, in which Providence most plainly appears. And 'tis for this
+Reason that the Author of a just Fable must please more than the Writer of
+an Historical Relation. The Good must never fail to prosper, and the Bad
+must be always punish'd: Otherwise the Incidents, and particularly the
+Catastrophe which is the grand Incident, are liable to be imputed rather
+to Chance, than to Almighty Conduct and to Sovereign Justice. The want of
+this impartial Distribution of Justice makes the _Coriolanus_ of
+_Shakespear_ to be without Moral. 'Tis true indeed _Coriolanus_ is kill'd
+by those Foreign Enemies with whom he had openly sided against his
+Country, which seems to be an Event worthy of Providence, and would look
+as if it were contriv'd by infinite Wisdom, and executed by supreme
+Justice, to make _Coriolanus_ a dreadful Example to all who lead on
+Foreign Enemies to the Invasion of their native Country; if there were not
+something in the Fate of the other Characters, which gives occasion to
+doubt of it, and which suggests to the Sceptical Reader that this might
+happen by accident. For _Aufidius_ the principal Murderer of _Coriolanus_,
+who in cold Blood gets him assassinated by Ruffians, instead of leaving
+him to the Law of the Country, and the Justice of the _Volscian_ Senate,
+and who commits so black a Crime, not by any erroneous Zeal, or a mistaken
+publick Spirit, but thro' Jealousy, Envy, and inveterate Malice; this
+Assassinator not only survives, and survives unpunish'd, but seems to be
+rewarded for so detestable an Action, by engrossing all those Honours to
+himself which _Coriolanus_ before had shar'd with him. But not only
+_Aufidius_, but the _Roman_ Tribunes, _Sicinius_ and _Brutus_, appear to
+me to cry aloud for Poetick Vengeance. For they are guilty of two Faults,
+neither of which ought to go unpunish'd: The first in procuring the
+Banishment of _Coriolanus_. If they were really jealous that _Coriolanus_
+had a Design on their Liberties, when he stood for the Consulship, it was
+but just that they should give him a Repulse; but to get the Champion and
+Defender of their Country banish'd upon a pretended Jealousy was a great
+deal too much, and could proceed from nothing but that Hatred and Malice
+which they had conceiv'd against him, for opposing their Institution.
+Their second Fault lay in procuring this Sentence by indirect Methods, by
+exasperating and inflaming the People by Artifices and Insinuations, by
+taking a base Advantage of the Open-heartedness and Violence of
+_Coriolanus_, and by oppressing him with a Sophistical Argument, that he
+aim'd at Sovereignty, because he had not delivered into the Publick
+Treasury the Spoils which he had taken from the _Antiates_. As if a Design
+of Sovereignty could be reasonably concluded from any one Act; or any one
+could think of bringing to pass such a Design, by eternally favouring the
+Patricians, and disobliging the Populace. For we need make no doubt but
+that it was among the young Patricians that _Coriolanus_ distributed the
+Spoils which were taken from the _Antiates_; whereas nothing but caressing
+the Populace could enslave the _Roman_ People, as _Cæsar_ afterwards very
+well saw and experienc'd. So that this Injustice of the Tribunes was the
+original Cause of the Calamity which afterwards befel their Country, by
+the Invasion of the _Volscians_, under the Conduct of _Coriolanus_. And
+yet these Tribunes at the end of the Play, like _Aufidius_, remain
+unpunish'd. But indeed _Shakespear_ has been wanting in the exact
+Distribution of Poetical Justice not only in his _Coriolanus_, but in most
+of his best Tragedies, in which the Guilty and the Innocent perish
+promiscuously; as _Duncan_ and _Banquo_ in _Mackbeth_, as likewise Lady
+_Macduffe_ and her Children; _Desdemona_ in _Othello_; _Cordelia_, _Kent_,
+and King _Lear_, in the Tragedy that bears his Name; _Brutus_ and _Porcia_
+in _Julius Cæsar_; and young _Hamlet_ in the Tragedy of _Hamlet_. For tho'
+it may be said in Defence of the last, that _Hamlet_ had a Design to kill
+his Uncle who then reign'd; yet this is justify'd by no less than a Call
+from Heaven, and raising up one from the Dead to urge him to it. The Good
+and the Bad then perishing promiscuously in the best of _Shakespear_'s
+Tragedies, there can be either none or very weak Instruction in them: For
+such promiscuous Events call the Government of Providence into Question,
+and by Scepticks and Libertines are resolv'd into Chance. I humbly
+conceive therefore that this want of Dramatical Justice in the Tragedy of
+_Coriolanus_ gave occasion for a just Alteration, and that I was oblig'd
+to sacrifice to that Justice _Aufidius_ and the Tribunes, as well as
+_Coriolanus_.
+
+Thus have we endeavour'd to shew that, for want of the Poetical Art,
+_Shakespear_ lay under very great Disadvantages. At the same time we must
+own to his Honour, that he has often perform'd Wonders without it, in
+spight of the Judgment of so great a Man as _Horace_.
+
+
+    Natura fieret laudabile carmen, an arte,
+    Quæsitum est: ego nec studium sine divite vena,
+    Nec rude quid prosit video ingenium; alterius sic
+    Altera poscit opem res, & conjurat amice.
+
+
+But from this very Judgment of _Horace_ we may justly conclude that
+_Shakespear_ would have wonderfully surpass'd himself, if Art had been
+join'd to Nature. There never was a greater Genius in the World than
+_Virgil_: He was one who seems to have been born for this glorious End,
+that the _Roman_ Muse might exert in him the utmost Force of her Poetry:
+And his admirable and divine Beauties are manifestly owing to the happy
+Confederacy of Art and Nature. It was Art that contriv'd that incomparable
+Design of the _Æneis_, and it was Nature that executed it. Could the
+greatest Genius that ever was infus'd into Earthly Mold by Heaven, if it
+had been unguided and unassisted by Art, have taught him to make that
+noble and wonderful Use of the _Pythagorean_ Transmigration, which he
+makes in the Sixth Book of his Poem? Had _Virgil_ been a circular Poet,
+and closely adher'd to History, how could the _Romans_ have been
+transported with that inimitable Episode of _Dido_, which brought a-fresh
+into their Minds the _Carthaginian_ War, and the dreadful _Hannibal_? When
+'tis evident that that admirable Episode is so little owing to a faithful
+observance of History, and the exact order of Time, that 'tis deriv'd from
+a very bold but judicious Violation of these; it being undeniable that
+_Dido_ liv'd almost 300 Years after _Æneas_. Yet is it that charming
+Episode that makes the chief Beauties of a third Part of the Poem. For the
+Destruction of _Troy_ it self, which is so divinely related, is still more
+admirable by the Effect it produces, which is the Passion of _Dido_.
+
+I should now proceed to shew under what Disadvantages _Shakespear_ lay for
+want of being conversant with the Ancients. But I have already writ a long
+Letter, and am desirous to know how you relish what has been already said
+before I go any farther: For I am unwilling to take more Pains before I am
+sure of giving you some Pleasure. I am,
+
+_Sir_,
+_Your most humble, faithful Servant_.
+
+
+
+
+Letter II.
+
+
+_Sir_, Feb. 6. 1710/11.
+
+Upon the Encouragement I have receiv'd from you, I shall proceed to shew
+under what Disadvantages _Shakespear_ lay for want of being conversant
+with the Ancients. But because I have lately been in some Conversation,
+where they would not allow but that he was acquainted with the Ancients, I
+shall endeavour to make it appear that he was not; and the shewing that in
+the Method in which I pretend to convince the Reader of it, will
+sufficiently prove what Inconveniencies he lay under, and what Errors he
+committed for want of being conversant with them. But here we must
+distinguish between the several kinds of Acquaintance: A Man may be said
+to be acquainted with another who never was but twice in his Company; but
+that is at the best a superficial Acquaintance, from which neither very
+great Pleasure nor Profit can be deriv'd. Our Business is here to shew
+that _Shakespear_ had no familiar Acquaintance with the _Græcian_ and
+_Roman_ Authors. For if he was familiarly conversant with them, how comes
+it to pass that he wants Art? Is it that he studied to know them in other
+things, and neglected that only in them, which chiefly tends to the
+Advancement of the Art of the Stage? Or is it that he wanted Discernment
+to see the Justness, and the Greatness, and the Harmony of their Designs,
+and the Reasonableness of those Rules upon which those Designs are
+founded? Or how come his Successors to have that Discernment which he
+wanted, when they fall so much below him in other things? How comes he to
+have been guilty of the grossest Faults in Chronology, and how come we to
+find out those Faults? In his Tragedy of _Troylus_ and _Cressida_, he
+introduces _Hector_ speaking of _Aristotle_, who was born a thousand Years
+after the Death of _Hector_. In the same Play mention is made of _Milo_,
+which is another very great Fault in Chronology. _Alexander_ is mention'd
+in _Coriolanus_, tho' that Conqueror of the Orient liv'd about two hundred
+Years after him. In this last Tragedy he has mistaken the very Names of
+his Dramatick Persons, if we give Credit to _Livy_. For the Mother of
+_Coriolanus_ in the _Roman_ Historian is _Vetturia_, and the Wife is
+_Volumnia_. Whereas in _Shakespear_ the Wife is _Virgilia_, and the Mother
+_Volumnia_. And the _Volscian_ General in _Shakespear_ is _Tullus
+Aufidius_, and _Tullus Attius_ in _Livy_. How comes it that he takes
+_Plutarch_'s Word, who was by Birth a _Græcian_, for the Affairs of
+_Rome_, rather than that of the _Roman_ Historian, if so be that he had
+read the latter? Or what Reason can be given for his not reading him, when
+he wrote upon a _Roman_ Story, but that in _Shakespear_'s time there was a
+Translation of _Plutarch_, and there was none of _Livy_? If _Shakespear_
+was familiarly conversant with the _Roman_ Authors, how came he to
+introduce a Rabble into _Coriolanus_, in which he offended not only
+against the Dignity of Tragedy, but the Truth of Fact, the Authority of
+all the _Roman_ Writers, the Customs of Ancient _Rome_, and the Majesty of
+the _Roman_ People? By introducing a Rabble into _Julius Cæsar_, he only
+offended against the Dignity of Tragedy. For that part of the People who
+ran about the Streets upon great Festivals, or publick Calamities, or
+publick Rejoicings, or Revolutions in Government, are certainly the Scum
+of the Populace. But the Persons who in the Time of _Coriolanus_ rose in
+Vindication of their just Rights, and extorted from the Patricians the
+Institution of the Tribunes of the People, and the Persons by whom
+afterwards _Coriolanus_ was tried, were the whole Body of the _Roman_
+People to the Reserve of the Patricians, which Body included the _Roman_
+Knights, and the wealthy substantial Citizens, who were as different from
+the Rabble as the Patricians themselves, as qualify'd as the latter to
+form a right Judgment of Things, and to contemn the vain Opinions of the
+Rabble. So at least _Horace_ esteems them, who very well knew his
+Countrymen.
+
+
+    Offenduntur enim, quibus est equus, aut pater, aut res,
+    Nec, siquid fricti ciceris probat aut nucis emptor,
+    Æquis accipiunt animis donantve Corona.
+
+
+Where we see the Knights and the substantial Citizens are rank'd in an
+equal Degree of Capacity with the _Roman_ Senators, and are equally
+distinguish'd from the Rabble.
+
+If _Shakespear_ was so conversant with the Ancients, how comes he to have
+introduc'd some Characters into his Plays so unlike what they are to be
+found in History? In the Character of _Menenius_ in the following Tragedy,
+he has doubly offended against that Historical Resemblance. For first
+whereas _Menenius_ was an eloquent Person, _Shakespear_ has made him a
+downright Buffoon. And how is it possible for any Man to conceive a
+_Ciceronian Jack-pudding_? Never was any Buffoon eloquent, or wise, or
+witty, or virtuous. All the good and ill Qualities of a Buffoon are summ'd
+up in one Word, and that is a Buffoon. And secondly, whereas _Shakespear_
+has made him a Hater and Contemner and Villifier of the People, we are
+assur'd by the _Roman_ Historian that _Menenius_ was extremely popular. He
+was so very far from opposing the Institution of the Tribunes, as he is
+represented in _Shakespear_, that he was chiefly instrumental in it. After
+the People had deserted the City, and sat down upon the sacred Mountain,
+he was the chief of the Delegates whom the Senate deputed to them, as
+being look'd upon to be the Person who would be most agreeable to them. In
+short, this very _Menenius_ both liv'd and dy'd so very much their
+Favourite, that dying poor he had pompous Funerals at the Expence of the
+_Roman_ People.
+
+Had _Shakespear_ read either _Sallust_ or _Cicero_, how could he have made
+so very little of the first and greatest of Men, as that _Cæsar_ should be
+but a Fourth-rate Actor in his own Tragedy? How could it have been that,
+seeing _Cæsar_, we should ask for _Cæsar_? That we should ask, where is
+his unequall'd Greatness of Mind, his unbounded Thirst of Glory, and that
+victorious Eloquence, with which he triumph'd over the Souls of both
+Friends and Enemies, and with which he rivall'd _Cicero_ in Genius as he
+did _Pompey_ in Power? How fair an Occasion was there to open the
+Character of _Cæsar_ in the first Scene between _Brutus_ and _Cassius_?
+For when _Cassius_ tells _Brutus_ that _Cæsar_ was but a Man like them,
+and had the same natural Imperfections which they had, how natural had it
+been for _Brutus_ to reply, that _Cæsar_ indeed had their Imperfections of
+Nature, but neither he nor _Cassius_ had by any means the great Qualities
+of _Cæsar_: neither his Military Virtue, nor Science, nor his matchless
+Renown, nor his unparallell'd Victories, his unwearied Bounty to his
+Friends, nor his Godlike Clemency to his Foes, his Beneficence, his
+Munificence, his Easiness of Access to the meanest _Roman_, his
+indefatigable Labours, his incredible Celerity, the Plausibleness if not
+Justness of his Ambition, that knowing himself to be the greatest of Men,
+he only sought occasion to make the World confess him such. In short, if
+_Brutus_, after enumerating all the wonderful Qualities of _Cæsar_, had
+resolv'd in spight of them all to sacrifice him to publick Liberty, how
+had such a Proceeding heighten'd the Virtue and the Character of _Brutus_?
+But then indeed it would have been requisite that _Cæsar_ upon his
+Appearance should have made all this good. And as we know no Principle of
+human Action but human Sentiment only, _Cæsar_, who did greater Things,
+and had greater Designs than the rest of the _Romans_, ought certainly to
+have outshin'd by many Degrees all the other Characters of his Tragedy.
+_Cæsar_ ought particularly to have justified his Actions, and to have
+heighten'd his Character, by shewing that what he had done, he had done by
+Necessity; that the _Romans_ had lost their _Agrarian_, lost their
+Rotation of Magistracy, and that consequently nothing but an empty Shadow
+of publick Liberty remain'd; that the _Gracchi_ had made the last noble
+but unsuccessful Efforts for the restoring the Commonwealth, that they had
+fail'd for want of arbitrary irresistible Power, the Restoration of the
+_Agrarian_ requiring too vast a Retrospect to be done without it; that the
+Government, when _Cæsar_ came to publick Affairs, was got into the Hands
+of a few, and that those few were factious, and were contending among
+themselves, and, if you will pardon so mean an Expression, scrambling as
+it were for Power; that _Cæsar_ was reduc'd to the Necessity of ruling, or
+himself obeying a Master; and that apprehending that another would
+exercise the supreme Command without that Clemency and Moderation which he
+did, he had rather chosen to rule than to obey. So that _Cæsar_ was faulty
+not so much in seizing upon the Sovereignty, which was become in a manner
+necessary, as in not re-establishing the Commonwealth, by restoring the
+_Agrarian_ and the Rotation of Magistracies, after he had got absolute and
+uncontroulable Power. And if _Cæsar_ had seiz'd upon the Sovereignty only
+with a View of re-establishing Liberty, he had surpass'd all Mortals in
+Godlike Goodness as much as he did in the rest of his astonishing
+Qualities. I must confess, I do not remember that we have any Authority
+from the _Roman_ Historians which may induce us to believe that _Cæsar_
+had any such Design. Nor if he had had any such View, could he, who was
+the most secret, the most prudent, and the most discerning of Men, have
+discover'd it before his _Parthian_ Expedition was over, for fear of
+utterly disobliging his Veterans. And _Cæsar_ believ'd that Expedition
+necessary for the Honour and Interest of the State, and for his own Glory.
+
+But of this we may be sure, that two of the most discerning of all the
+_Romans_, and who had the deepest Insight into the Soul of _Cæsar_,
+_Sallust_ and _Cicero_, were not without Hopes that _Cæsar_ would really
+re-establish Liberty, or else they would not have attack'd him upon it;
+the one in his Oration for _Marcus Marcellus_, the other in the Second
+Part of that little Treatise _De Republica ordinanda_, which is address'd
+to _Cæsar_. _Hæc igitur tibi reliqua pars, says Cicero, Hic restat Actus,
+in hoc elaborandum est, ut Rempublicam constituas, eaque tu in primis
+composita, summa Tranquillitate & otio perfruare. Cicero_ therefore was
+not without Hope that _Cæsar_ would re-establish the Commonwealth; and any
+one who attentively peruses that Oration of _Cicero_, will find that that
+Hope was reasonably grounded upon his knowledge of the great Qualities of
+_Cæsar_, his Clemency, his Beneficence, his admirable Discernment; and
+that avoidless Ruine in which the whole Empire would be soon involv'd, if
+_Cæsar_ did not effect this. _Sallust_ urges it still more home to him and
+with greater vehemence; he has recourse to every Motive that may be
+thought to be powerful over so great a Soul. He exhorts him by the Memory
+of his matchless Conquests, not to suffer the invincible Empire of the
+_Roman_ People to be devour'd by Time, or to be torn in pieces by Discord;
+one of which would soon and infallibly happen, if Liberty was not
+restor'd.
+
+He introduces his Country and his Progenitors urging him in a noble
+Prosopopeia, by all the mighty Benefits which they had conferr'd upon him,
+with so little Pains of his own, not to deny them that just and easy
+Request of the Restoration of Liberty. He adjures him by those Furies
+which will eternally haunt his Soul upon his impious Refusal: He implores
+him by the foresight of those dismal Calamities, that horrible Slaughter,
+those endless Wars, and that unbounded Devastation, which will certainly
+fall upon Mankind, if the Restoration of Liberty is prevented by his
+Death, or his incurable Sickness: And lastly, he entreats him by his
+Thirst of immortal Glory, that Glory in which he now has Rivals, if he has
+not Equals; but which, if he re-establishes Liberty, will be acknowledg'd
+by consenting Nations to have neither Equal nor Second.
+
+I am apt to believe that if _Shakespear_ had been acquainted with all
+this, we had had from him quite another Character of _Cæsar_ than that
+which we now find in him. He might then have given us a Scene something
+like that which _Corneille_ has so happily us'd in his Cinna; something
+like that which really happen'd between _Augustus_, _Mecænas_, and
+_Agrippa_. He might then have introduc'd _Cæsar_ consulting _Cicero_ on
+the one side, and on the other _Anthony_, whether he should retain that
+absolute Sovereignty which he had acquir'd by his Victory, or whether he
+should re-establish and immortalize Liberty. That would have been a Scene
+which might have employ'd the finest Art and the utmost force of a Writer.
+That had been a Scene in which all the great Qualities of _Cæsar_ might
+have been display'd. I will not pretend to determine here how that Scene
+might have been turn'd; and what I have already said on this Subject, has
+been spoke with the utmost Caution and Diffidence. But this I will venture
+to say, that if that Scene had been manag'd so, as, by the powerful
+Motives employ'd in it, to have shaken the Soul of _Cæsar_, and to have
+left room for the least Hope, for the least Doubt, that _Cæsar_ would have
+re-establish'd Liberty, after his _Parthian_ Expedition; and if this
+Conversation had been kept secret till the Death of _Cæsar_, and then had
+been discover'd by _Anthony_; then had _Cæsar_ fall'n, so belov'd and
+lamented by the _Roman_ People, so pitied and so bewail'd even by the
+Conspirators themselves, as never Man fell. Then there would have been a
+Catastrophe the most dreadful and the most deplorable that ever was beheld
+upon the Tragick Stage. Then had we seen the noblest of the Conspirators
+cursing their temerarious Act, and the most apprehensive of them in
+dreadful expectation of those horrible Calamities which fell upon the
+_Romans_ after the Death of _Cæsar_. But, Sir, when I write this to you, I
+write it with the utmost Deference to the extraordinary Judgment of that
+great Man who some Years ago, I hear, alter'd the _Julius Cæsar_. And I
+make no doubt but that his fine Discernment and the rest of his great
+Qualities have amply supply'd the Defects which are found in the Character
+of _Shakespear_'s _Cæsar_.
+
+I should here answer an Argument, by which some People pretend to prove,
+and especially those with whom I lately convers'd, that _Shakespear_ was
+conversant with the Ancients. But besides that the Post is about to be
+gone, I am heartily tir'd with what I have already writ, and so doubtless
+are you; I shall therefore defer the rest to the next opportunity, and
+remain
+
+Your, _&c_.
+
+
+
+
+Letter III.
+
+
+_Sir_, Feb. 8.
+
+I come now to the main Argument, which some People urge to prove that
+_Shakespear_ was conversant with the Ancients. For there is, say they,
+among _Shakespear_'s Plays, one call'd _The Comedy of Errors_, which is
+undeniably an Imitation of the _Menechmi_ of _Plautus_. Now _Shakespear_,
+say they, being conversant with _Plautus_, it undeniably follows that he
+was acquainted with the Ancients; because no _Roman_ Author could be hard
+to him who had conquer'd _Plautus_. To which I answer, that the Errors
+which we have mention'd above are to be accounted for no other way but by
+the want of knowing the Ancients, or by downright want of Capacity. But
+nothing can be more absurd or more unjust than to impute it to want of
+Capacity. For the very Sentiments of _Shakespear_ alone are sufficient to
+shew that he had a great Understanding: And therefore we must account some
+other way for his Imitation of the _Menechmi_. I remember to have seen,
+among the Translations of _Ovid_'s Epistles printed by Mr. _Tonson_, an
+Imitation of that from _OEnone_ to _Paris_, which Mr. _Dryden_ tells us in
+his Preface to those Epistles was imitated by one of the Fair Sex who
+understood no _Latin_, but that she had done enough to make those blush
+who understood it the best. There are at this day several Translators,
+who, as _Hudibrass_ has it,
+
+
+    Translate from Languages of which
+    They understand no part of Speech.
+
+
+I will not affirm that of _Shakespear_; I believe he was able to do what
+Pedants call construe, but that he was able to read _Plautus_ without Pain
+and Difficulty I can never believe. Now I appeal to you, Sir, what time he
+had between his Writing and his Acting, to read any thing that could not
+be read with Ease and Pleasure. We see that our Adversaries themselves
+acknowledge, that if _Shakespear_ was able to read _Plautus_ with Ease,
+nothing in Latinity could be hard to him. How comes it to pass then, that
+he has given us no Proofs of his familiar Acquaintance with the Ancients,
+but this Imitation of the _Menechmi_, and a Version of two Epistles of
+_Ovid_? How comes it that he had never read _Horace_, of a superiour Merit
+to either, and particularly his Epistle to the _Piso's_, which so much
+concern'd his Art? Or if he had read that Epistle, how comes it that in
+his _Troylus_ and _Cressida_ [we must observe by the way, that when
+_Shakespear_ wrote that Play, _Ben Johnson_ had not as yet translated that
+Epistle] he runs counter to the Instructions which _Horace_ has given for
+the forming the Character of _Achilles_?
+
+
+    Scriptor: Honoratum si forte reponis Achillem,
+    Impiger, Iracundus, Inexorabilis, Acer,
+    Jura neget sibi nata.
+
+
+Where is the _Impiger_, the _Iracundus_, or the _Acer_, in the Character
+of _Shakespear_'s _Achilles_? who is nothing but a drolling, lazy,
+conceited, overlooking Coxcomb; so far from being the honoured _Achilles_,
+the Epithet that _Homer_ and _Horace_ after him give him, that he is
+deservedly the Scorn and the Jest of the rest of the Characters, even to
+that Buffoon _Thersites_.
+
+Tho' _Shakespear_ succeeded very well in Comedy, yet his principal Talent
+and his chief Delight was Tragedy. If then _Shakespear_ was qualify'd to
+read _Plautus_ with Ease, he could read with a great deal more Ease the
+Translations of _Sophocles_ and _Euripides_. And tho' by these
+Translations he would not have been able to have seen the charming
+colouring of those great Masters, yet would he have seen all the Harmony
+and the Beauty of their great and their just Designs. He would have seen
+enough to have stirr'd up a noble Emulation in so exalted a Soul as his.
+How comes it then that we hear nothing from him of the _OEdipus_, the
+_Electra_, the _Antigone_ of _Sophocles_, of the _Iphigenia_'s, the
+_Orestes_, the _Medea_, the _Hecuba_ of _Euripides_? How comes it that we
+see nothing in the Conduct of his Pieces, that shews us that he had the
+least Acquaintance with any of these great Masterpieces? Did _Shakespear_
+appear to be so nearly touch'd with the Affliction of _Hecuba_ for the
+Death of _Priam_, which was but daub'd and bungled by one of his
+Countrymen, that he could not forbear introducing it as it were by
+Violence into his own _Hamlet_, and would he make no Imitation, no
+Commendation, not the least Mention of the unparallell'd and inimitable
+Grief of the _Hecuba_ of _Euripides_? How comes it that we find no
+Imitation of any ancient Play in Him but the _Menechmi_ of _Plautus_? How
+came he to chuse a Comick preferably to the Tragick Poets? Or how comes he
+to chuse _Plautus_ preferably to _Terence_, who is so much more just, more
+graceful, more regular, and more natural? Or how comes he to chuse the
+_Menechmi_ of _Plautus_, which is by no means his Master-piece, before all
+his other Comedies? I vehemently suspect that this Imitation of the
+_Menechmi_ was either from a printed Translation of that Comedy which is
+lost, or some Version in Manuscript brought him by a Friend, or sent him
+perhaps by a Stranger, or from the original Play it self recommended to
+him, and read to him by some learned Friend. In short, I had rather
+account for this by what is not absurd than by what is, or by a less
+Absurdity than by a greater. For nothing can be more wrong than to
+conclude from this that _Shakespear_ was conversant with the Ancients;
+which contradicts the Testimony of his Contemporary and his familiar
+Acquaintance _Ben Johnson_, and of his Successor _Milton_;
+
+
+    Lo _Shakespear_, Fancy's sweetest Child,
+    Warbles his native Wood-notes wild;
+
+
+and of Mr. _Dryden_ after them both; and which destroys the most glorious
+Part of _Shakespear_'s Merit immediately. For how can he be esteem'd equal
+by Nature or superior to the Ancients, when he falls so far short of them
+in Art, tho' he had the Advantage of knowing all that they did before him?
+Nay it debases him below those of common Capacity, by reason of the Errors
+which we mention'd above. Therefore he who allows that _Shakespear_ had
+Learning and a familiar Acquaintance with the Ancients, ought to be look'd
+upon as a Detractor from his extraordinary Merit, and from the Glory of
+_Great Britain_. For whether is it more honourable for this Island to have
+produc'd a Man who, without having any Acquaintance with the Ancients, or
+any but a slender and a superficial one, appears to be their Equal or
+their Superiour by the Force of Genius and Nature, or to have bred one
+who, knowing the Ancients, falls infinitely short of them in Art, and
+consequently in Nature it self? _Great Britain_ has but little Reason to
+boast of its Natives Education, since the same that they had here, they
+might have had in another place. But it may justly claim a very great
+share in their Nature and Genius, since these depend in a great measure on
+the Climate; and therefore _Horace_, in the Instruction which he gives for
+the forming the Characters, advises the noble _Romans_ for whose
+Instruction he chiefly writes to consider whether the Dramatick Person
+whom they introduce is
+
+" Colchus an Assyrius, Thebis nutritus an Argis. "
+
+Thus, Sir, I have endeavour'd to shew under what great Disadvantages
+_Shakespear_ lay, for want of the Poetical Art, and for want of being
+conversant with the Ancients.
+
+But besides this, he lay under other very great Inconveniencies. For he
+was neither Master of Time enough to consider, correct, and polish what he
+wrote, to alter it, to add to it, and to retrench from it, nor had he
+Friends to consult upon whose Capacity and Integrity he could depend. And
+tho' a Person of very good Judgment may succeed very well without
+consulting his Friends, if he takes time enough to correct what he writes;
+yet even the greatest Man that Nature and Art can conspire to accomplish,
+can never attain to Perfection, without either employing a great deal of
+time, or taking the Advice of judicious Friends. Nay, 'tis the Opinion of
+_Horace_ that he ought to do both.
+
+
+                        Siquid tamen olim
+    Scripseris, in Metii descendat Judicis aures,
+    Et Patris, & nostras; nonumque prematur in Annum.
+
+
+Now we know very well that _Shakespear_ was an Actor, at a time when there
+were seven or eight Companies of Players in the Town together, who each of
+them did their utmost Endeavours to get the Audiences from the rest, and
+consequently that our Author was perpetually call'd upon, by those who had
+the Direction and Management of the Company to which he belong'd, for new
+Pieces which might be able to support them, and give them some Advantage
+over the rest. And 'tis easie to judge what Time he was Master of, between
+his laborious Employment of Acting and his continual Hurry of Writing. As
+for Friends, they whom in all likelihood _Shakespear_ consulted most were
+two or three of his Fellow-Actors, because they had the Care of publishing
+his Works committed to them. Now they, as we are told by _Ben Johnson_ in
+his _Discoveries_, were extremely pleas'd with their Friend for scarce
+ever making a Blot; and were very angry with _Ben_ for saying he wish'd
+that he had made a thousand. The Misfortune of it is that _Horace_ was
+perfectly of _Ben_'s, mind.
+
+
+                                  ----Vos, O
+    Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod non
+    Multa dies & multa litura coercuit, atque
+    Præsectum decies non castigavit ad unguem.
+
+
+And so was my Lord _Roscommon_.
+
+
+    Poets lose half the Praise they should have got,
+    Could it be known what they discreetly blot.
+
+
+These Friends then of _Shakespear_ were not qualify'd to advise him. As
+for _Ben Johnson_, besides that _Shakespear_ began to know him late, and
+that _Ben_ was not the most communicative Person in the World of the
+Secrets of his Art, he seems to me to have had no right Notion of Tragedy.
+Nay, so far from it, that he who was indeed a very great Man, and who has
+writ Comedies, by which he has born away the Prize of Comedy both from
+Ancients and Moderns, and been an Honour to _Great Britain_; and who has
+done this without any Rules to guide him, except what his own incomparable
+Talent dictated to him; This extraordinary Man has err'd so grossly in
+Tragedy, of which there were not only stated Rules, but Rules which he
+himself had often read, and had even translated, that he has chosen two
+Subjects, which, according to those very Rules, were utterly incapable of
+exciting either Compassion or Terror for the principal Characters, which
+yet are the chief Passions that a Tragick Poet ought to endeavour to
+excite. So that _Shakespear_ having neither had Time to correct, nor
+Friends to consult, must necessarily have frequently left such faults in
+his Writings, for the Correction of which either a great deal of Time or a
+judicious and a well-natur'd Friend is indispensably necessary.
+
+
+    Vir bonus & prudens versus reprehendet inertes,
+    Culpabit duros, incomptis allinet atrum
+    Transverso calamo signum, ambitiosa recidet
+    Ornamenta, parum claris lucem dare coget,
+    Arguet ambigue dictum, mutanda notabit.
+
+
+There is more than one Example of every kind of these Faults in the
+Tragedies of _Shakespear_, and even in the _Coriolanus_. There are Lines
+that are utterly void of that celestial Fire of which _Shakespear_ is
+sometimes Master in so great a Degree. And consequently there are Lines
+that are stiff and forc'd, and harsh and unmusical, tho' _Shakespear_ had
+naturally an admirable Ear for the Numbers. But no Man ever was very
+musical who did not write with Fire, and no Man can always write with
+Fire, unless he is so far Master of his Time, as to expect those Hours
+when his Spirits are warm and volatile. _Shakespear_ must therefore
+sometimes have Lines which are neither strong nor graceful: For who ever
+had Force or Grace that had not Spirit? There are in his _Coriolanus_,
+among a great many natural and admirable Beauties, three or four of those
+Ornaments which _Horace_ would term ambitious; and which we in _English_
+are apt to call Fustian or Bombast. There are Lines in some Places which
+are very obscure, and whole Scenes which ought to be alter'd.
+
+I have, Sir, employ'd some Time and Pains, and that little Judgment which
+I have acquir'd in these Matters by a long and a faithful reading both of
+Ancients and Moderns, in adding, retrenching, and altering several Things
+in the _Coriolanus_ of _Shakespear_, but with what Success I must leave to
+be determin'd by you. I know very well that you will be surpriz'd to find,
+that after all that I have said in the former Part of this Letter against
+_Shakespear_'s introducing the Rabble into _Coriolanus_, I have not only
+retain'd in the second Act of the following Tragedy the Rabble which is in
+the Original, but deviated more from the _Roman_ Customs than _Shakespear_
+had done before me. I desire you to look upon it as a voluntary Fault and
+a Trespass against Conviction: 'Tis one of those Things which are _ad
+Populum Phaleræ_, and by no means inserted to please such Men as you.
+
+Thus, Sir, have I laid before you a short but impartial Account of the
+Beauties and Defects of _Shakespear_, with an Intention to make these
+Letters publick if they are approv'd by you; to teach some People to
+distinguish between his Beauties and his Defects, that while they imitate
+the one, they may with Caution avoid the other [there being nothing of
+more dangerous Contagion to Writers, and especially to young ones, than
+the Faults of great Masters], and while with _Milton_ they applaud the
+great Qualities which _Shakespear_ had by Nature, they may follow his wise
+Example, and form themselves as he assures us that he himself did, upon
+the Rules and Writings of the Ancients.
+
+Sir, if so candid and able a Judge as your self shall happen to approve of
+this Essay in the main, and to excuse and correct my Errors, that
+Indulgence and that Correction will not only encourage me to make these
+Letters publick, but will enable me to bear the Reproach of those who
+would fix a Brand even upon the justest Criticism, as the Effect of Envy
+and Ill-nature; as if there could possibly be any Ill-nature in the doing
+Justice, or in the endeavouring to advance a very noble and a very useful
+Art, and consequently to prove beneficent to Mankind. As for those who may
+accuse me of the want of a due Veneration for the Merit of an Author of so
+establish'd a Reputation as _Shakespear_, I shall beg leave to tell them,
+that they chuse the wrongest time that they could possibly take for such
+an Accusation as that. For I appeal to you, Sir, who shews most Veneration
+for the Memory of _Shakespear_, he who loves and admires his Charms and
+makes them one of his chief Delights, who sees him and reads him over and
+over and still remains unsatiated, and who mentions his Faults for no
+other Reason but to make his Excellency the more conspicuous, or he who,
+pretending to be his blind Admirer, shews in Effect the utmost Contempt
+for him, preferring empty effeminate Sound to his solid Beauties and manly
+Graces, and deserting him every Night for an execrable _Italian_ Ballad,
+so vile that a Boy who should write such lamentable Dogrel would be turn'd
+out of _Westminster_-School for a desperate Blockhead, too stupid to be
+corrected and amended by the harshest Discipline of the Place?
+
+_I am_,
+_Sir_,
+_Yours, &c._
+
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDER POPE: PREFACE TO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE. 1725.
+
+
+It is not my design to enter into a Criticism upon this Author; tho' to do
+it effectually and not superficially would be the best occasion that any
+just Writer could take, to form the judgment and taste of our nation. For
+of all _English_ Poets _Shakespear_ must be confessed to be the fairest
+and fullest subject for Criticism, and to afford the most numerous as well
+as most conspicuous instances, both of Beauties and Faults of all sorts.
+But this far exceeds the bounds of a Preface, the business of which is
+only to give an account of the fate of his Works, and the disadvantages
+under which they have been transmitted to us. We shall hereby extenuate
+many faults which are his, and clear him from the imputation of many which
+are not: A design, which, tho' it can be no guide to future Criticks to do
+him justice in one way, will at least be sufficient to prevent their doing
+him an injustice in the other.
+
+I cannot however but mention some of his principal and characteristic
+Excellencies, for which (notwithstanding his defects) he is justly and
+universally elevated above all other Dramatic Writers. Not that this is
+the proper place of praising him, but because I would not omit any
+occasion of doing it.
+
+If ever any Author deserved the name of an _Original_, it was
+_Shakespear_. _Homer_ himself drew not his art so immediately from the
+fountains of Nature; it proceeded thro' _Ægyptian_ strainers and channels,
+and came to him not without some tincture of the learning, or some cast of
+the models, of those before him. The Poetry of _Shakespear_ was
+Inspiration indeed: he is not so much an Imitator, as an Instrument, of
+Nature; and 'tis not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that she
+speaks thro' him.
+
+His _Characters_ are so much Nature her self, that 'tis a sort of injury
+to call them by so distant a name as Copies of her. Those of other Poets
+have a constant resemblance, which shews that they receiv'd them from one
+another, and were but multiplyers of the same image: each picture, like a
+mock-rainbow, is but the reflexion of a reflexion. But every single
+character in _Shakespear_ is as much an Individual as those in Life
+itself; it is as impossible to find any two alike; and such as from their
+relation or affinity in any respect appear most to be Twins, will upon
+comparison be found remarkably distinct. To this life and variety of
+Character, we must add the wonderful Preservation of it; which is such
+throughout his plays, that had all the Speeches been printed without the
+very names of the Persons, I believe one might have apply'd them with
+certainty to every speaker.
+
+The _Power_ over our _Passions_ was never possess'd in a more eminent
+degree, or display'd in so different instances. Yet all along, there is
+seen no labour, no pains to raise them; no preparation to guide our guess
+to the effect, or be perceiv'd to lead toward it: But the heart swells,
+and the tears burst out, just at the proper places: We are surpriz'd, the
+moment we weep; and yet upon reflection find the passion so just, that we
+shou'd be surpriz'd if we had not wept, and wept at that very moment.
+
+How astonishing is it again, that the passions directly opposite to these,
+Laughter and Spleen, are no less at his command! that he is not more a
+master of the _Great_, than of the _Ridiculous_ in human nature; of our
+noblest tendernesses, than of our vainest foibles; of our strongest
+emotions, than of our idlest sensations!
+
+Nor does he only excel in the Passions: In the coolness of Reflection and
+Reasoning he is full as admirable. His _Sentiments_ are not only in
+general the most pertinent and judicious upon every subject; but by a
+talent very peculiar, something between Penetration and Felicity, he hits
+upon that particular point on which the bent of each argument turns, or
+the force of each motive depends. This is perfectly amazing, from a man of
+no education or experience in those great and publick scenes of life which
+are usually the subject of his thoughts: So that he seems to have known
+the world by Intuition, to have look'd thro' humane nature at one glance,
+and to be the only Author that gives ground for a very new opinion, That
+the Philosopher, and even the Man of the world, may be _Born_, as well as
+the Poet.
+
+It must be own'd that with all these great excellencies he has almost as
+great defects; and that as he has certainly written better, so he has
+perhaps written worse, than any other. But I think I can in some measure
+account for these defects, from several causes and accidents; without
+which it is hard to imagine that so large and so enlighten'd a mind could
+ever have been susceptible of them. That all these Contingencies should
+unite to his disadvantage seems to me almost as singularly unlucky, as
+that so many various (nay contrary) Talents should meet in one man, was
+happy and extraordinary.
+
+It must be allowed that Stage-Poetry of all other is more particularly
+levell'd to please the _Populace_, and its success more immediately
+depending upon the _Common Suffrage_. One cannot therefore wonder, if
+_Shakespear_, having at his first appearance no other aim in his writings
+than to procure a subsistance, directed his endeavours solely to hit the
+taste and humour that then prevailed. The Audience was generally composed
+of the meaner sort of people; and therefore the Images of Life were to be
+drawn from those of their own rank: accordingly we find that not our
+Author's only but almost all the old Comedies have their Scene among
+_Tradesmen_ and _Mechanicks_: And even their Historical Plays strictly
+follow the common _Old Stories_ or _Vulgar Traditions_ of that kind of
+people. In Tragedy, nothing was so sure to _Surprize_ and cause
+_Admiration_, as the most strange, unexpected, and consequently most
+unnatural, Events and Incidents; the most exaggerated Thoughts; the most
+verbose and bombast Expression; the most pompous Rhymes, and thundering
+Versification. In Comedy, nothing was so sure to _please_, as mean
+buffoonry, vile ribaldry, and unmannerly jests of fools and clowns. Yet
+even in these our Author's Wit buoys up, and is born above his subject:
+his Genius in those low parts is like some Prince of a Romance in the
+disguise of a Shepherd or Peasant; a certain Greatness and Spirit now and
+then break out, which manifest his higher extraction and qualities.
+
+It may be added, that not only the common Audience had no notion of the
+rules of writing, but few even of the better sort piqu'd themselves upon
+any great degree of knowledge or nicety that way, till _Ben Johnson_
+getting possession of the Stage brought critical learning into vogue: And
+that this was not done without difficulty, may appear from those frequent
+lessons (and indeed almost Declamations) which he was forced to prefix to
+his first plays, and put into the mouth of his Actors, the _Grex_,
+_Chorus_, &c. to remove the prejudices, and inform the judgment of his
+hearers. Till then, our Authors had no thoughts of writing on the model of
+the Ancients: their Tragedies were only Histories in Dialogue; and their
+Comedies follow'd the thread of any Novel as they found it, no less
+implicitly than if it had been true History.
+
+To judge therefore of _Shakespear_ by _Aristotle_'s rules, is like trying
+a man by the Laws of one Country, who acted under those of another. He
+writ to the _People_; and writ at first without patronage from the better
+sort, and therefore without aims of pleasing them: without assistance or
+advice from the Learned, as without the advantage of education or
+acquaintance among them: without that knowledge of the best models, the
+Ancients, to inspire him with an emulation of them; in a word, without any
+views of Reputation, and of what Poets are pleas'd to call Immortality:
+Some or all of which have encourag'd the vanity, or animated the ambition,
+of other writers.
+
+Yet it must be observ'd, that when his performances had merited the
+protection of his Prince, and when the encouragement of the Court had
+succeeded to that of the Town, the works of his riper years are manifestly
+raised above those of his former. The Dates of his plays sufficiently
+evidence that his productions improved, in proportion to the respect he
+had for his auditors. And I make no doubt this observation will be found
+true in every instance, were but Editions extant from which we might learn
+the exact time when every piece was composed, and whether writ for the
+Town or the Court.
+
+Another Cause (and no less strong than the former) may be deduced from our
+Author's being a _Player_, and forming himself first upon the judgments of
+that body of men whereof he was a member. They have ever had a Standard to
+themselves, upon other principles than those of _Aristotle_. As they live
+by the Majority, they know no rule but that of pleasing the present
+humour, and complying with the wit in fashion; a consideration which
+brings all their judgment to a short point. Players are just such judges
+of what is _right_, as Taylors are of what is _graceful_. And in this view
+it will be but fair to allow, that most of our Author's faults are less to
+be ascribed to his wrong judgment as a Poet, than to his right judgment as
+a Player.
+
+By these men it was thought a praise to _Shakespear_, that he scarce ever
+_blotted a line_. This they industriously propagated, as appears from what
+we are told by _Ben Johnson_ in his _Discoveries_, and from the preface of
+_Heminges_ and _Condell_ to the first folio Edition. But in reality
+(however it has prevailed) there never was a more groundless report, or to
+the contrary of which there are more undeniable evidences: As, the Comedy
+of the _Merry Wives_ of _Windsor_, which he entirely new writ; the
+_History of_ Henry _the 6th_, which was first published under the Title of
+the _Contention of_ York _and_ Lancaster; and that of Henry _the 5th_,
+extreamly improved; that of _Hamlet_ enlarged to almost as much again as
+at first, and many others. I believe the common opinion of his want of
+Learning proceeded from no better ground. This too might be thought a
+Praise by some; and to this his Errors have as injudiciously been ascribed
+by others. For 'tis certain, were it true, it would concern but a small
+part of them; the most are such as are not properly Defects, but
+Superfoetations: and arise not from want of learning or reading, but from
+want of thinking or judging: or rather (to be more just to our Author)
+from a compliance to those wants in others. As to a wrong choice of the
+subject, a wrong conduct of the incidents, false thoughts, forc'd
+expressions, &c. if these are not to be ascrib'd to the foresaid
+accidental reasons, they must be charg'd upon the Poet himself, and there
+is no help for it. But I think the two Disadvantages which I have
+mentioned (to be obliged to please the lowest of the people, and to keep
+the worst of company), if the consideration be extended as far as it
+reasonably may, will appear sufficient to mis-lead and depress the
+greatest Genius upon earth. Nay the more modesty with which such a one is
+endued, the more he is in danger of submitting and conforming to others,
+against his own better judgment.
+
+But as to his _Want of Learning_, it may be necessary to say something
+more: There is certainly a vast difference between _Learning_ and
+_Languages_. How far he was ignorant of the latter, I cannot determine;
+but 'tis plain he had much Reading at least, if they will not call it
+Learning. Nor is it any great matter, if a man has Knowledge, whether he
+has it from one language or from another. Nothing is more evident than
+that he had a taste of natural Philosophy, Mechanicks, ancient and modern
+History, Poetical learning, and Mythology: We find him very knowing in the
+customs, rites, and manners of Antiquity. In _Coriolanus_ and _Julius
+Cæsar_, not only the Spirit, but Manners, of the _Romans_ are exactly
+drawn; and still a nicer distinction is shewn, between the manners of the
+_Romans_ in the time of the former and of the latter. His reading in the
+ancient Historians is no less conspicuous, in many references to
+particular passages: and the speeches copy'd from _Plutarch_ in
+_Coriolanus_ may, I think, as well be made an instance of his learning, as
+those copy'd from _Cicero_ in _Catiline_, of _Ben Johnson_'s. The manners
+of other nations in general, the _Egyptians_, _Venetians_, _French_, &c.,
+are drawn with equal propriety. Whatever object of nature, or branch of
+science, he either speaks of or describes, it is always with competent, if
+not extensive knowledge: his descriptions are still exact; all his
+metaphors appropriated, and remarkably drawn from the true nature and
+inherent qualities of each subject. When he treats of Ethic or Politic, we
+may constantly observe a wonderful justness of distinction, as well as
+extent of comprehension. No one is more a master of the Poetical story, or
+has more frequent allusions to the various parts of it: Mr. _Waller_ (who
+has been celebrated for this last particular) has not shown more learning
+this way than _Shakespear_. We have Translations from _Ovid_ published in
+his name, among those Poems which pass for his, and for some of which we
+have undoubted authority (being published by himself, and dedicated to his
+noble Patron the Earl of _Southampton_). He appears also to have been
+conversant in _Plautus_, from whom he has taken the plot of one of his
+plays: he follows the _Greek_ Authors, and particularly _Dares Phrygius_,
+in another (altho' I will not pretend to say in what language he read
+them). The modern _Italian_ writers of Novels he was manifestly acquainted
+with; and we may conclude him to be no less conversant with the Ancients
+of his own country, from the use he has made of _Chaucer_ in _Troilus_ and
+_Cressida_, and in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_, if that Play be his, as there
+goes a Tradition it was (and indeed it has little resemblance of
+_Fletcher_, and more of our Author than some of those which have been
+received as genuine).
+
+I am inclined to think, this opinion proceeded originally from the zeal of
+the Partizans of our Author and _Ben Johnson_; as they endeavoured to
+exalt the one at the expence of the other. It is ever the nature of
+Parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as that because
+_Ben Johnson_ had much the more learning, it was said on the one hand that
+_Shakespear_ had none at all; and because _Shakespear_ had much the most
+wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, that _Johnson_ wanted both.
+Because _Shakespear_ borrowed nothing, it was said that _Ben Johnson_
+borrowed every thing. Because _Johnson_ did not write extempore, he was
+reproached with being a year about every piece; and because _Shakespear_
+wrote with ease and rapidity, they cryed, he never once made a blot. Nay
+the spirit of opposition ran so high, that whatever those of the one side
+objected to the other, was taken at the rebound, and turned into Praises;
+as injudiciously as their antagonists before had made them Objections.
+
+Poets are always afraid of Envy; but sure they have as much reason to be
+afraid of Admiration. They are the _Scylla_ and _Charybdis_ of Authors;
+those who escape one, often fall by the other. _Pessimum genus inimicorum
+Laudantes_, says _Tacitus_: and _Virgil_ desires to wear a charm against
+those who praise a Poet without rule or reason.
+
+
+    ----Si ultra placitum laudarit, baccare frontem
+    Cingito, ne Vati noceat----.
+
+
+But however this contention might be carried on by the Partizans on either
+side, I cannot help thinking these two great Poets were good friends, and
+lived on amicable terms and in offices of society with each other. It is
+an acknowledged fact, that _Ben Johnson_ was introduced upon the Stage,
+and his first works encouraged, by _Shakespear_. And after his death, that
+Author writes _To the memory of __ his beloved Mr._ William Shakespear,
+which shows as if the friendship had continued thro' life. I cannot for my
+own part find any thing _Invidious_ or _Sparing_ in those verses, but
+wonder Mr. _Dryden_ was of that opinion. He exalts him not only above all
+his Contemporaries, but above _Chaucer_ and _Spenser_, whom he will not
+allow to be great enough to be rank'd with him; and challenges the names
+of _Sophocles_, _Euripides_, and _Æschylus_, nay all _Greece_ and _Rome_
+at once, to equal him: And (which is very particular) expressly vindicates
+him from the imputation of wanting _Art_, not enduring that all his
+excellencies shou'd be attributed to _Nature_. It is remarkable too, that
+the praise he gives him in his _Discoveries_ seems to proceed from a
+_personal kindness_; he tells us that he lov'd the man, as well as
+honoured his memory; celebrates the honesty, openness, and frankness of
+his temper; and only distinguishes, as he reasonably ought, between the
+real merit of the Author, and the silly and derogatory applauses of the
+Players. _Ben Johnson_ might indeed be sparing in his Commendations (tho'
+certainly he is not so in this instance) partly from his own nature, and
+partly from judgment. For men of judgment think they do any man more
+service in praising him justly, than lavishly. I say, I would fain believe
+they were Friends, tho' the violence and ill-breeding of their Followers
+and Flatterers were enough to give rise to the contrary report. I would
+hope that it may be with _Parties_, both in Wit and State, as with those
+Monsters described by the Poets; and that their _Heads_ at least may have
+something humane, tho' their _Bodies_ and _Tails_ are wild beasts and
+serpents.
+
+As I believe that what I have mentioned gave rise to the opinion of
+_Shakespear_'s want of learning; so what has continued it down to us may
+have been the many blunders and illiteracies of the first Publishers of
+his works. In these Editions their ignorance shines almost in every page;
+nothing is more common than _Actus tertia_, _Exit Omnes_, _Enter three
+Witches solus_. Their French is as bad as their _Latin_, both in
+construction and spelling: Their very _Welsh_ is false. Nothing is more
+likely than that those palpable blunders of _Hector_'s quoting
+_Aristotle_, with others of that gross kind, sprung from the same root: It
+not being at all credible that these could be the errors of any man who
+had the least tincture of a School, or the least conversation with such as
+had. _Ben Johnson_ (whom they will not think partial to him) allows him at
+least to have had _some Latin_; which is utterly inconsistent with
+mistakes like these. Nay the constant blunders in proper names of persons
+and places, are such as must have proceeded from a man who had not so much
+as read any history, in any language: so could not be _Shakespear_'s.
+
+I shall now lay before the reader some of those almost innumerable Errors
+which have risen from one source, the ignorance of the Players, both as
+his actors, and as his editors. When the nature and kinds of these are
+enumerated and considered, I dare to say that not _Shakespear_ only, but
+_Aristotle_ or _Cicero_, had their works undergone the same fate, might
+have appear'd to want sense as well as learning.
+
+It is not certain that any one of his Plays was published by himself.
+During the time of his employment in the Theatre, several of his pieces
+were printed separately in Quarto. What makes me think that most of these
+were not publish'd by him, is the excessive carelessness of the press:
+every page is so scandalously false spelled, and almost all the learned
+and unusual words so intolerably mangled, that it's plain there either was
+no Correcter to the press at all, or one totally illiterate. If any were
+supervised by himself, I should fancy the two parts of _Henry the 4th_ and
+_Midsummer-Night's Dream_ might have been so: because I find no other
+printed with any exactness; and (contrary to the rest) there is very
+little variation in all the subsequent editions of them. There are extant
+two Prefaces, to the first quarto edition of _Troilus_ and _Cressida_ in
+1609, and to that of _Othello_; by which it appears, that the first was
+publish'd without his knowledge or consent, and even before it was acted,
+so late as seven or eight years before he died: and that the latter was
+not printed till after his death. The whole number of genuine plays which
+we have been able to find printed in his life-time, amounts but to eleven.
+And of some of these, we meet with two or more editions by different
+printers, each of which has whole heaps of trash different from the other:
+which I should fancy was occasion'd by their being taken from different
+copies, belonging to different Playhouses.
+
+The folio edition (in which all the plays we now receive as his were first
+collected) was published by two Players, _Heming_ and _Condell_, in 1623,
+seven years after his decease. They declare that all the other editions
+were stolen and surreptitious, and affirm theirs to be purged from the
+errors of the former. This is true as to the literal errors, and no other;
+for in all respects else it is far worse than the Quarto's:
+
+First, because the additions of trifling and bombast passages are in this
+edition far more numerous. For whatever had been added, since those
+Quarto's, by the actors, or had stolen from their mouths into the written
+parts, were from thence conveyed into the printed text, and all stand
+charged upon the Author. He himself complained of this usage in _Hamlet_,
+where he wishes that _those who play the Clowns wou'd speak no more than
+is set down for them_ (Act 3. Sc. 4.). But as a proof that he could not
+escape it, in the old editions of _Romeo_ and _Juliet_ there is no hint of
+a great number of the mean conceits and ribaldries now to be found there.
+In others, the low scenes of Mobs, Plebeians, and Clowns, are vastly
+shorter than at present: And I have seen one in particular (which seems to
+have belonged to the Playhouse, by having the parts divided with lines,
+and the Actors names in the margin) where several of those very passages
+were added in a written hand, which are since to be found in the folio.
+
+In the next place, a number of beautiful passages which are extant in the
+first single editions, are omitted in this: as it seems, without any other
+reason than their willingness to shorten some scenes: These men (as it was
+said of _Procrustes_) either lopping or stretching an Author, to make him
+just fit for their Stage.
+
+This edition is said to be printed from the _Original Copies_; I believe
+they meant those which had lain ever since the Author's days in the
+playhouse, and had from time to time been cut, or added to, arbitrarily.
+It appears that this edition, as well as the Quarto's, was printed (at
+least partly) from no better copies than the _Prompter's Book_ or
+_Piece-meal Parts_ written out for the use of the actors: For in some
+places their very(38) names are thro' carelessness set down instead of the
+_Personæ Dramatis_: And in others the notes of direction to the
+_Property-men_ for their _Moveables_, and to the _Players_ for their
+_Entries_,(39) are inserted into the Text, thro' the ignorance of the
+Transcribers.
+
+The Plays not having been before so much as distinguish'd by _Acts_ and
+_Scenes_, they are in this edition divided according as they play'd them;
+often when there is no pause in the action, or where they thought fit to
+make a breach in it, for the sake of Musick, Masques, or Monsters.
+
+Sometimes the scenes are transposed and shuffled backward and forward; a
+thing which could no otherwise happen, but by their being taken from
+separate and piece-meal-written parts.
+
+Many verses are omitted intirely, and others transposed; from whence
+invincible obscurities have arisen, past the guess of any Commentator to
+clear up, but just where the accidental glympse of an old edition
+enlightens us.
+
+Some Characters were confounded and mix'd, or two put into one, for want
+of a competent number of actors. Thus in the Quarto edition of
+_Midsummer-Night's Dream_, Act 5, _Shakespear_ introduces a kind of Master
+of the Revels called _Philostratus_: all whose part is given to another
+character (that of _Ægeus_) in the subsequent editions: So also in
+_Hamlet_ and _King Lear_. This too makes it probable that the Prompter's
+Books were what they call'd the Original Copies.
+
+From liberties of this kind, many speeches also were put into the mouths
+of wrong persons, where the Author now seems chargeable with making them
+speak out of character: Or sometimes perhaps for no better reason than
+that a governing Player, to have the mouthing of some favourite speech
+himself, would snatch it from the unworthy lips of an Underling.
+
+Prose from verse they did not know, and they accordingly printed one for
+the other throughout the volume.
+
+Having been forced to say so much of the Players, I think I ought in
+justice to remark, that the Judgment, as well as Condition, of that class
+of people was then far inferior to what it is in our days. As then the
+best Playhouses were Inns and Taverns (the _Globe_, the _Hope_, the _Red
+Bull_, the _Fortune_, &c.), so the top of the profession were then meer
+Players, not Gentlemen of the stage: They were led into the Buttery by the
+Steward, not plac'd at the Lord's table, or Lady's toilette: and
+consequently were intirely depriv'd of those advantages they now enjoy, in
+the familiar conversation of our Nobility, and an intimacy (not to say
+dearness) with people of the first condition.
+
+From what has been said, there can be no question but had _Shakespear_
+published his works himself (especially in his latter time, and after his
+retreat from the stage) we should not only be certain which are genuine;
+but should find in those that are, the errors lessened by some thousands.
+If I may judge from all the distinguishing marks of his style, and his
+manner of thinking and writing, I make no doubt to declare that those
+wretched plays, _Pericles_, _Locrine_, _Sir John Oldcastle_, _Yorkshire
+Tragedy_, _Lord Cromwell_, _The Puritan_, and _London Prodigal_, cannot be
+admitted as his. And I should conjecture of some of the others
+(particularly _Love's Labour's Lost_, _The Winter's Tale_, and _Titus
+Andronicus_), that only some characters, single scenes, or perhaps a few
+particular passages, were of his hand. It is very probable what occasion'd
+some Plays to be supposed _Shakespear_'s was only this; that they were
+pieces produced by unknown authors, or fitted up for the Theatre while it
+was under his administration: and no owner claiming them, they were
+adjudged to him, as they give Strays to the Lord of the Manor: A mistake
+which (one may also observe) it was not for the interest of the House to
+remove. Yet the Players themselves, _Hemings_ and _Condell_, afterwards
+did _Shakespear_ the justice to reject those eight plays in their edition;
+tho' they were then printed in his name, in every body's hands, and acted
+with some applause (as we learn from what _Ben Johnson_ says of _Pericles_
+in his Ode on the _New Inn_). That _Titus Andronicus_ is one of this class
+I am the rather induced to believe, by finding the same Author openly
+express his contempt of it in the _Induction_ to _Bartholomew-Fair_, in
+the year 1614, when _Shakespear_ was yet living. And there is no better
+authority for these latter sort, than for the former, which were equally
+published in his lifetime.
+
+If we give into this opinion, how many low and vicious parts and passages
+might no longer reflect upon this great Genius, but appear unworthily
+charged upon him? And even in those which are really his, how many faults
+may have been unjustly laid to his account from arbitrary Additions,
+Expunctions, Transpositions of scenes and lines, confusion of Characters
+and Persons, wrong application of Speeches, corruptions of innumerable
+Passages by the Ignorance, and wrong Corrections of 'em again by the
+Impertinence, of his first Editors? From one or other of these
+considerations, I am verily perswaded, that the greatest and the grossest
+part of what are thought his errors would vanish, and leave his character
+in a light very different from that disadvantageous one, in which it now
+appears to us.
+
+This is the state in which _Shakespear_'s, writings lye at present; for
+since the above-mentioned Folio Edition, all the rest have implicitly
+followed it, without having recourse to any of the former, or ever making
+the comparison between them. It is impossible to repair the Injuries
+already done him; too much time has elaps'd, and the materials are too
+few. In what I have done I have rather given a proof of my willingness and
+desire, than of my ability, to do him justice. I have discharg'd the dull
+duty of an Editor to my best judgment, with more labour than I expect
+thanks, with a religious abhorrence of all Innovation, and without any
+indulgence to my private sense or conjecture. The method taken in this
+Edition will show it self. The various Readings are fairly put in the
+margin, so that every one may compare 'em; and those I have prefer'd into
+the Text are constantly _ex fide Codicum_, upon authority. The Alterations
+or Additions which _Shakespear_ himself made, are taken notice of as they
+occur. Some suspected passages which are excessively bad (and which seem
+Interpolations by being so inserted that one can intirely omit them
+without any chasm or deficience in the context) are degraded to the bottom
+of the page; with an Asterisk referring to the places of their insertion.
+The Scenes are mark'd so distinctly that every removal of place is
+specify'd; which is more necessary in this Author than any other, since he
+shifts them more frequently: and sometimes, without attending to this
+particular, the reader would have met with obscurities. The more obsolete
+or unusual words are explained. Some of the most shining passages are
+distinguish'd by comma's in the margin; and where the beauty lay not in
+particulars but in the whole, a star is prefix'd to the scene. This seems
+to me a shorter and less ostentatious method of performing the better half
+of Criticism (namely the pointing out an Author's excellencies) than to
+fill a whole paper with citations of fine passages, with _general
+Applauses_, or _empty Exclamations_ at the tail of them. There is also
+subjoin'd a Catalogue of those first Editions by which the greater part of
+the various readings and of the corrected passages are authorised (most of
+which are such as carry their own evidence along with them). These
+Editions now hold the place of Originals, and are the only materials left
+to repair the deficiences or restore the corrupted sense of the Author: I
+can only wish that a greater number of them (if a greater were ever
+published) may yet be found, by a search more successful than mine, for
+the better accomplishment of this end.
+
+I will conclude by saying of _Shakespear_, that with all his faults, and
+with all the irregularity of his _Drama_, one may look upon his works, in
+comparison of those that are more finish'd and regular, as upon an ancient
+majestick piece of _Gothick_ Architecture, compar'd with a neat Modern
+building: The latter is more elegant and glaring, but the former is more
+strong and more solemn. It must be allow'd that in one of these there are
+materials enough to make many of the other. It has much the greater
+variety, and much the nobler apartments; tho' we are often conducted to
+them by dark, odd, and uncouth passages. Nor does the Whole fail to strike
+us with greater reverence, tho' many of the Parts are childish,
+ill-plac'd, and unequal to its grandeur.
+
+
+
+
+
+LEWIS THEOBALD: PREFACE TO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE. 1733.
+
+
+The Attempt to write upon SHAKESPEARE is like going into a large, a
+spacious, and a splendid Dome thro' the Conveyance of a narrow and obscure
+Entry. A Glare of Light suddenly breaks upon you beyond what the Avenue at
+first promis'd: and a thousand Beauties of Genius and Character, like so
+many gaudy Apartments pouring at once upon the Eye, diffuse and throw
+themselves out to the Mind. The Prospect is too wide to come within the
+Compass of a single View: 'tis a gay Confusion of pleasing Objects, too
+various to be enjoyed but in a general Admiration; and they must be
+separated, and ey'd distinctly, in order to give the proper Entertainment.
+
+And as in great Piles of Building, some Parts are often finish'd up to hit
+the Taste of the _Connoisseur_; others more negligently put together, to
+strike the Fancy of a common and unlearned Beholder: Some Parts are made
+stupendously magnificent and grand, to surprize with the vast Design and
+Execution of the Architect; others are contracted, to amuse you with his
+Neatness and Elegance in little. So, in _Shakespeare_, we may find
+_Traits_ that will stand the Test of the severest Judgment; and Strokes as
+carelessly hit off, to the Level of the more ordinary Capacities: Some
+Descriptions rais'd to that Pitch of Grandeur, as to astonish you with the
+Compass and Elevation of his Thought; and others copying Nature within so
+narrow, so confined a Circle, as if the Author's Talent lay only at
+drawing in Miniature.
+
+In how many points of Light must we be obliged to gaze at this great Poet!
+In how many Branches of Excellence to consider and admire him! Whether we
+view him on the Side of Art or Nature, he ought equally to engage our
+Attention: Whether we respect the Force and Greatness of his Genius, the
+Extent of his Knowledge and Reading, the Power and Address with which he
+throws out and applies either Nature or Learning, there is ample scope
+both for our Wonder and Pleasure. If his Diction and the cloathing of his
+Thoughts attract us, how much more must we be charm'd with the Richness
+and Variety of his Images and Ideas! If his Images and Ideas steal into
+our Souls, and strike upon our Fancy, how much are they improv'd in Price,
+when we come to reflect with what Propriety and Justness they are apply'd
+to Character! If we look into his Characters, and how they are furnish'd
+and proportion'd to the Employment he cuts out for them, how are we taken
+up with the Mastery of his Portraits! What Draughts of Nature! What
+Variety of Originals, and how differing each from the other! How are they
+dress'd from the Stores of his own luxurious Imagination; without being
+the Apes of Mode, or borrowing from any foreign Wardrobe! Each of them are
+the standards of Fashion for themselves: like Gentlemen that are above the
+Direction of their Tailors, and can adorn themselves without the aid of
+Imitation. If other Poets draw more than one Fool or Coxcomb, there is the
+same Resemblance in them as in that Painter's Draughts, who was happy only
+at forming a Rose: you find them all younger Brothers of the same Family,
+and all of them have a Pretence to give the same Crest: But
+_Shakespeare_'s Clowns and Fops come all of a different House; they are no
+farther allied to one another than as Man to Man, Members of the same
+Species: but as different in Features and Lineaments of Character, as we
+are from one another in Face or Complexion. But I am unawares lanching
+into his Character as a Writer, before I have said what I intended of him
+as a private Member of the Republick.
+
+Mr. _Rowe_ has very justly observ'd, that People are fond of discovering
+any little personal Story of the Great Men of Antiquity; and that the
+common Accidents of their Lives naturally become the Subject of our
+critical Enquiries: That however trifling such a Curiosity at the first
+View may appear, yet, as for what relates to Men of Letters, the Knowledge
+of an Author may, perhaps, sometimes conduce to the better understanding
+his Works: And, indeed, this Author's Works, from the bad Treatment he has
+met with from Copyists and Editors, have so long wanted a Comment, that
+one would zealously embrace every Method of Information that could
+contribute to recover them from the injuries with which they have so long
+lain o'erwhelm'd.
+
+'Tis certain that if we have first admir'd the Man in his Writings, his
+Case is so circumstanc'd that we must naturally admire the Writings in the
+Man: That if we go back to take a View of his Education, and the
+Employment in Life which Fortune had cut out for him, we shall retain the
+stronger Ideas of his extensive Genius.
+
+His Father, we are told, was a considerable Dealer in Wool; but having no
+fewer than ten Children, of whom our _Shakespeare_ was the eldest, the
+best education he could afford him was no better than to qualify him for
+his own Business and Employment. I cannot affirm with any Certainty how
+long his Father liv'd; but I take him to be the same Mr. _John
+Shakespeare_ who was living in the Year 1599, and who then, in Honour of
+his Son, took out an Extract of his Family Arms from the Herald's Office;
+by which it appears, that he had been Officer and Bailiff of _Stratford_
+upon _Avon_ in _Warwickshire_; and that he enjoy'd some hereditary Lands
+and Tenements, the Reward of his Great Grandfather's faithful and approved
+Service to King _Henry_ VII.
+
+Be this as it will, our _Shakespeare_, it seems, was bred for some Time at
+a Free-School; the very Free-School, I presume, founded at _Stratford_:
+where, we are told, he acquired what _Latin_ he was master of: but that
+his Father being oblig'd, thro' Narrowness of Circumstance, to withdraw
+him too soon from thence, he was thereby unhappily prevented from making
+any Proficiency in the Dead Languages: A Point that will deserve some
+little Discussion in the Sequel of this Dissertation.
+
+How long he continued in his Father's Way of Business, either as an
+Assistant to him, or on his own proper Account, no Notices are left to
+inform us: nor have I been able to learn precisely at what Period of Life
+he quitted his native _Stratford_, and began his Acquaintance with
+_London_ and the _Stage_.
+
+In order to settle in the World after a Family-manner, he thought fit, Mr.
+_Rowe_ acquaints us, to marry while he was yet very young. It is certain
+he did so: for by the Monument in _Stratford_ Church, erected to the
+Memory of his Daughter _Susanna_, the Wife of _John Hall_, Gentleman, it
+appears that she died on the 2d Day of _July_, in the Year 1649, aged 66.
+So that she was born in 1583, when her Father could not be full 19 Years
+old; who was himself born in the Year 1564. Nor was she his eldest Child,
+for he had another Daughter, _Judith_, who was born before her, and who
+was married to one Mr. _Thomas Quiney_. So that _Shakespeare_ must have
+entred into Wedlock by that Time he was turn'd of seventeen Years.
+
+Whether the Force of Inclination merely, or some concurring Circumstances
+of Convenience in the Match, prompted him to marry so early, is not easy
+to be determin'd at this Distance: but 'tis probable, a View of Interest
+might partly sway his Conduct on this Point: for he married the Daughter
+of one _Hathaway_, a substantial Yeoman in his Neighbourhood, and she had
+the Start of him in Age no less than eight Years. She surviv'd him,
+notwithstanding, seven Seasons, and dy'd that very Year in which the
+_Players_ publish'd the first Edition of his Works in _Folio_, Anno Dom.
+1623, at the Age of 67 Years, as we likewise learn from her Monument in
+_Stratford_ Church.
+
+How long he continued in this kind of Settlement, upon his own Native
+Spot, is not more easily to be determin'd. But if the Tradition be true of
+that Extravagance which forc'd him both to quit his Country and Way of
+Living; to wit, his being engag'd, with a Knot of young Deer-stealers, to
+rob the Park of Sir _Thomas Lucy_ of _Cherlecot_ near _Stratford_: the
+Enterprize favours so much of Youth and Levity, we may reasonably suppose
+it was before he could write full Man. Besides, considering he has left us
+six and thirty Plays, at least, avow'd to be genuine; and considering too,
+that he had retir'd from the Stage, to spend the latter Part of his Days
+at his own Native _Stratford_; the Interval of Time, necessarily required
+for the finishing so many Dramatic Pieces, obliges us to suppose he threw
+himself very early upon the Playhouse. And as he could, probably, contract
+no Acquaintance with the Drama, while he was driving on the Affair of Wool
+at home; some Time must be lost, even after he had commenc'd Player,
+before he could attain Knowledge enough in the Science to qualify himself
+for turning Author.
+
+It has been observ'd by Mr. _Rowe_, that amongst other Extravagancies
+which our Author has given to his Sir _John Falstaffe_, in the _Merry
+Wives_ of _Windsor_, he has made him a Deer-stealer; and that he might at
+the same Time remember his _Warwickshire_ Prosecutor, under the Name of
+_Justice Shallow_, he has given him very near the same Coat of Arms, which
+_Dugdale_, in his Antiquities of that County, describes for a Family
+there. There are two Coats, I observe, in _Dugdale_, where three Silver
+Fishes are borne in the Name of _Lucy_; and another Coat, to the Monument
+of _Thomas Lucy_, Son of Sir _William Lucy_, in which are quarter'd in
+four several Divisions twelve little Fishes, three in each Division,
+probably _Luces_. This very Coat, indeed, seems alluded to in _Shallow's_
+giving the _dozen_ White _Luces_, and in _Slender_ saying _he may
+quarter_. When I consider the exceeding Candour and Good-nature of our
+Author (which inclin'd all the gentler Part of the World to love him; as
+the Power of his Wit obliged the Men of the most delicate Knowledge and
+polite Learning to admire him); and that he should throw this humorous
+Piece of Satire at his Prosecutor, at least twenty Years after the
+Provocation given; I am confidently persuaded it must be owing to an
+unforgiving Rancour on the Prosecutor's Side: and if This was the Case, it
+were Pity but the Disgrace of such an Inveteracy should remain as a
+lasting Reproach, and _Shallow_ stand as a Mark of Ridicule to stigmatize
+his Malice.
+
+It is said, our Author spent some Years before his Death, in Ease,
+Retirement, and the Conversation of his Friends, at his Native
+_Stratford_. I could never pick up any certain Intelligence, when he
+relinquish'd the Stage. I know, it has been mistakenly thought by some,
+that _Spenser_'s _Thalia_, in his _Tears of the Muses_, where she laments
+the Loss of her _Willy_ in the Comic Scene, has been apply'd to our
+Author's quitting the Stage. But _Spenser_ himself, 'tis well known,
+quitted the Stage of Life in the Year 1598; and, five Years after this, we
+find _Shakespeare_'s Name among the Actors in _Ben Jonson_'s _Sejanus_,
+which first made its Appearance in the Year 1603. Nor, surely, could he
+then have any Thoughts of retiring, since, that very Year, a Licence under
+the Privy-Seal was granted by K. _James_ I. to him and _Fletcher_,
+_Burbage_, _Phillippes_, _Hemings_, _Condel_, &c. authorizing them to
+exercise the Art of playing Comedies, Tragedies, &c. as well at their
+usual House call'd the _Globe_ on the other Side of the Water, as in any
+other Parts of the Kingdom, during his Majesty's Pleasure (A Copy of which
+Licence is preserv'd in _Rymer's Foedera_). Again, 'tis certain that
+_Shakespeare_ did not exhibit his _Macbeth_ till after the Union was
+brought about, and till after King _James_ I. had begun to touch for the
+_Evil_: for 'tis plain, he has inserted Compliments, on both those
+Accounts, upon his Royal Master in that Tragedy. Nor, indeed, could the
+Number of the Dramatic Pieces he produced admit of his retiring near so
+early as that Period. So that what _Spenser_ there says, if it relate at
+all to _Shakespeare_, must hint at some occasional Recess he made for a
+time upon a Disgust taken: or the _Willy_, there mention'd, must relate to
+some other favourite Poet. I believe, we may safely determine that he had
+not quitted in the Year 1610. For in his _Tempest_, our Author makes
+mention of the _Bermuda_ Islands, which were unknown to the _English_,
+till, in 1609, Sir _John Summers_ made a Voyage to _North-America_, and
+discover'd them: and afterwards invited some of his Countrymen to settle a
+Plantation there. That he became the private Gentleman, at least three
+Years before his Decease, is pretty obvious from another Circumstance: I
+mean, from that remarkable and well-known Story, which Mr. _Rowe_ has
+given us of our Author's Intimacy with Mr. _John Combe_, an old Gentleman
+noted thereabouts for his Wealth and Usury: and upon whom _Shakespeare_
+made the following facetious Epitaph:
+
+
+    Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd,
+    'Tis a hundred to ten his Soul is not sav'd;
+    If any Man ask who lies in this Tomb,
+    Oh! oh! quoth the Devil, 'tis my _John-a-Combe_.
+
+
+This sarcastical Piece of Wit was, at the Gentleman's own Request, thrown
+out extemporally in his Company. And this Mr. _John Combe_ I take to be
+the same, who, by _Dugdale_ in his Antiquities of _Warwickshire_, is said
+to have dy'd in the Year 1614, and for whom, at the upper end of the Quire
+of the Guild of the Holy Cross at _Stratford_, a fair Monument is erected,
+having a Statue thereon cut in Alabaster, and in a Gown, with this
+Epitaph. "Here lyeth interr'd the Body of _John Combe_, Esq; who dy'd the
+10th of _July_, 1614, who bequeathed several Annual Charities to the
+Parish of _Stratford_, and 100_l._ to be lent to fifteen poor Tradesmen
+from three years to three years, changing the Parties every third Year, at
+the Rate of fifty Shillings _per Annum_, the Increase to be distributed to
+the Almes-poor there."--The Donation has all the Air of a rich and
+sagacious Usurer.
+
+_Shakespeare_ himself did not survive Mr. _Combe_ long, for he dy'd in the
+Year 1616, the 53d of his Age. He lies buried on the North Side of the
+Chancel in the great Church at _Stratford_; where a Monument, decent
+enough for the Time, is erected to him, and plac'd against the Wall. He is
+represented under an Arch in a sitting posture, a Cushion spread before
+him, with a Pen in his Right Hand, and his Left rested on a Scrowl of
+Paper. The _Latin_ Distich, which is placed under the Cushion, has been
+given us by Mr. _Pope_, or his Graver, in this Manner.
+
+
+    INGENIO _Pylium_, Genio _Socratem_, Arte _Maronem_,
+    Terra tegit, Populus moeret, Olympus habet.
+
+
+I confess, I don't conceive the Difference betwixt _Ingenio_ and _Genio_
+in the first Verse. They seem to me intirely synonymous Terms; nor was the
+_Pylian_ sage _Nestor_ celebrated for his Ingenuity, but for an Experience
+and Judgment owing to his long Age. _Dugdale_, in his Antiquities of
+_Warwickshire_, has copied this Distich with a Distinction which Mr.
+_Rowe_ has follow'd, and which certainly restores us the true Meaning of
+this Epitaph.
+
+
+    JUDICIO Pylium, _Genio_ Socratem, &c.
+
+
+In 1614, the greater Part of the Town of _Stratford_ was consumed by Fire;
+but our _Shakespeare_'s House, among some others, escap'd the Flames. This
+House was first built by Sir _Hugh Clopton_, a younger Brother of an
+ancient Family in that Neighbourhood, who took their Name from the Manor
+of _Clopton_. Sir _Hugh_ was Sheriff of _London_ in the Reign of _Richard_
+III. and Lord Mayor in the Reign of King _Henry_ VII. To this Gentleman
+the Town of _Stratford_ is indebted for the fine Stonebridge, consisting
+of fourteen Arches, which at an extraordinary Expence he built over the
+_Avon_, together with a Cause-way running at the West-end thereof; as also
+for rebuilding the Chapel adjoining to his House, and the Cross-Isle in
+the Church there. It is remarkable of him, that, tho' he liv'd and dy'd a
+Bachelor, among the other extensive Charities which he left both to the
+City of _London_ and Town of _Stratford_, he bequeath'd considerable
+Legacies for the Marriage of poor Maidens of good Name and Fame both in
+_London_ and at _Stratford_. Notwithstanding which large Donations in his
+Life, and Bequests at his Death, as he had purchased the Manor of
+_Clopton_, and all the Estate of the Family, so he left the same again to
+his elder Brother's Son with a very great Addition (a Proof how well
+Beneficence and OEconomy may walk hand in hand in wise Families): Good Part
+of which Estate is yet in the Possession of _Edward Clopton_, Esq. and Sir
+_Hugh Clopton_, Knt. lineally descended from the elder Brother of the
+first Sir _Hugh_: Who particularly bequeathed to his Nephew, by his Will,
+his House, by the Name of his _Great-House_ in _Stratford_.
+
+The Estate had now been sold out of the _Clopton_ Family for above a
+Century, at the time when _Shakespeare_ became the Purchaser: who, having
+repair'd and modell'd it to his own Mind, chang'd the Name to _New-place_;
+which the Mansion-house, since erected upon the same Spot, at this day
+retains. The House and Lands, which attended it, continued in
+_Shakespeare_'s Descendants to the Time of the _Restoration_: when they
+were repurchased by the _Clopton_ Family, and the Mansion now belongs to
+Sir _Hugh Clopton_, Knt. To the Favour of this worthy Gentleman I owe the
+Knowledge of one Particular, in Honour of our Poet's once Dwelling-house,
+of which, I presume, Mr. ROWE never was appriz'd. When the Civil War raged
+in _England_, and K. _Charles_ the _First_'s Queen was driven by the
+Necessity of Affairs to make a Recess in _Warwickshire_, she kept her
+Court for three Weeks in _New-place_. We may reasonably suppose it then
+the best private House in the Town; and her Majesty preferr'd it to the
+_College_, which was in the Possession of the _Combe_ Family, who did not
+so strongly favour the King's Party.
+
+How much our Author employ'd himself in Poetry, after his Retirement from
+the Stage, does not so evidently appear: Very few posthumous Sketches of
+his Pen have been recover'd to ascertain that Point. We have been told,
+indeed, in Print, but not till very lately, That two large Chests full of
+this Great Man's loose Papers and Manuscripts, in the Hands of an ignorant
+Baker of _Warwick_ (who married one of the Descendants from our
+_Shakespeare_), were carelessly scatter'd and thrown about, as
+Garret-Lumber and Litter, to the particular Knowledge of the late Sir
+_William Bishop_, till they were all consumed in the general Fire and
+Destruction of that Town. I cannot help being a little apt to distrust the
+Authority of this Tradition; because as his Wife survived him seven Years,
+and as his Favourite Daughter _Susanna_ surviv'd her twenty-six Years,
+'tis very improbable they should suffer such a Treasure to be remov'd, and
+translated into a remoter Branch of the Family, without a Scrutiny first
+made into the Value of it. This, I say, inclines me to distrust the
+Authority of the Relation: but, notwithstanding such an apparent
+Improbability, if we really lost such a Treasure, by whatever Fatality or
+Caprice of Fortune they came into such ignorant and neglectful Hands, I
+agree with the _Relater_, the Misfortune is wholly irreparable.
+
+To these Particulars, which regard his Person and private Life, some few
+more are to be glean'd from Mr. ROWE'S Account of his _Life_ and
+_Writings_: Let us now take a short View of him in his publick Capacity,
+as a _Writer_: and, from thence, the Transition will be easy to the
+_State_ in which his _Writings_ have been handed down to us.
+
+No Age, perhaps, can produce an Author more various from himself than
+_Shakespeare_ has been universally acknowledged to be. The Diversity in
+Stile, and other Parts of Composition, so obvious in him, is as variously
+to be accounted for. His Education, we find, was at best but begun: and he
+started early into a Science from the Force of Genius, unequally assisted
+by acquir'd Improvements. His Fire, Spirit, and Exuberance of Imagination
+gave an impetuosity to his Pen: His Ideas flow'd from him in a Stream
+rapid, but not turbulent; copious, but not ever over-bearing its Shores.
+The Ease and Sweetness of his Temper might not a little contribute to his
+Facility in Writing: as his Employment, as a _Player_, gave him an
+Advantage and Habit of fancying himself the very Character he meant to
+delineate. He used the Helps of his Function in forming himself to create
+and express that _Sublime_ which other Actors can only copy, and throw
+out, in Action and graceful Attitude. But _Nullum sine Venia placuit
+Ingenium_, says _Seneca_. The Genius that gives us the greatest Pleasure,
+sometimes stands in Need of our Indulgence. Whenever this happens with
+regard to _Shakespeare_ I would willingly impute it to a Vice of _his
+Times_. We see Complaisance enough, in our Days, paid to a _bad Taste_. So
+that his _Clinches_, _false Wit_, and descending beneath himself, may have
+proceeded from a Deference paid to the then _reigning Barbarism_.
+
+I have not thought it out of my Province, whenever Occasion offer'd, to
+take notice of some of our Poet's grand Touches of Nature: Some that do
+not appear superficially such; but in which he seems the most deeply
+instructed; and to which, no doubt, he has so much ow'd that happy
+Preservation of his _Characters_, for which he is justly celebrated. Great
+Genius's, like his, naturally unambitious, are satisfy'd to conceal their
+Art in these Points. 'Tis the Foible of your worser Poets to make a Parade
+and Ostentation of that little Science they have; and to throw it out in
+the most ambitious Colours. And whenever a Writer of this Class shall
+attempt to copy these artful Concealments of our Author, and shall either
+think them easy, or practised by a Writer for his Ease, he will soon be
+convinced of his Mistake by the Difficulty of reaching the Imitation of
+them.
+
+
+    Speret idem, sudet multum, frustraque laboret,
+    Ausus idem:----
+
+
+Indeed, to point out, and exclaim upon, all the Beauties of _Shakespeare_,
+as they come singly in Review, would be as insipid, as endless; as
+tedious, as unnecessary: But the Explanation of those Beauties that are
+less obvious to common Readers, and whose Illustration depends on the
+Rules of just Criticism, and an exact knowledge of human Life, should
+deservedly have a Share in a general Critic upon the Author. But, to pass
+over at once to another Subject:----
+
+It has been allow'd on all hands, how far our Author was indebted to
+_Nature_; it is not so well agreed, how much he ow'd to _Languages_ and
+acquired _Learning_. The Decisions on this Subject were certainly set on
+Foot by the Hint from _Ben Jonson_, that he had small _Latin_ and less
+_Greek_: And from this Tradition, as it were, Mr. _Rowe_ has thought fit
+peremptorily to declare, that, "It is without Controversy, he had no
+Knowledge of the Writings of the ancient Poets, for that in his Works we
+find no Traces of any thing which looks like an imitation of the Ancients.
+For the Delicacy of his Taste (_continues He_) and the natural Bent of his
+own great Genius (equal, if not superior, to some of the Best of theirs),
+would certainly have led him to read and study them with so much Pleasure,
+that some of their fine Images would naturally have insinuated themselves
+into, and been mix'd with his own Writings: and so his not copying at
+least something from them, may be an Argument of his never having read
+them." I shall leave it to the Determination of my Learned Readers, from
+the numerous Passages, which I have occasionally quoted in my Notes, in
+which our Poet seems closely to have imitated the Classics, whether Mr.
+_Rowe_'s Assertion be so absolutely to be depended on. The Result of the
+Controversy must certainly, either way, terminate to our Author's Honour:
+how happily he could imitate them, if that Point be allowed; or how
+gloriously he could think like them, without owing any thing to Imitation.
+
+Tho' I should be very unwilling to allow _Shakespeare_ so poor a Scholar
+as Many have labour'd to represent him, yet I shall be very cautious of
+declaring too positively on the other side of the Question: that is, with
+regard to my Opinion of his Knowledge in the dead languages. And therefore
+the Passages, that I occasionally quote from the _Classics_, shall not be
+urged as Proofs that he knowingly imitated those Originals; but brought to
+shew how happily he has express'd himself upon the same Topicks. A very
+learned Critick of our own Nation has declar'd, that a Sameness of Thought
+and Sameness of Expression too, in Two Writers of a different Age, can
+hardly happen, without a violent Suspicion of the latter copying from his
+Predecessor. I shall not therefore run any great Risque of a Censure, tho'
+I should venture to hint, that the Resemblances in Thought and Expression
+of our Author and an Ancient (which we should allow to be Imitation in the
+One whose learning was not question'd) may sometimes take its Rise from
+Strength of Memory, and those Impressions which he owed to the School. And
+if we may allow a Possibility of This, considering that, when he quitted
+the School he gave into his Father's Profession and way of Living, and
+had, 'tis likely, but a slender Library of Classical Learning; and
+considering what a Number of Translations, Romances, and Legends, started
+about his Time, and a little before (most of which, 'tis very evident, he
+read); I think, it may easily be reconciled why he rather schemed his
+_Plots_ and _Characters_ from these more latter Informations, than went
+back to those Fountains, for which he might entertain a sincere
+Veneration, but to which he could not have so ready a Recourse.
+
+In touching on another Part of his Learning, as it related to the
+Knowledge of _History_ and _Books_, I shall advance something that, at
+first sight, will very much wear the Appearance of a Paradox. For I shall
+find it no hard Matter to prove, that, from the grossest Blunders in
+History, we are not to infer his real Ignorance of it: Nor from a greater
+Use of _Latin_ Words, than ever any other _English_ Author used, must we
+infer his intimate Acquaintance with that Language.
+
+A Reader of Taste may easily observe, that tho' _Shakespeare_, almost in
+every Scene of his historical Plays, commits the grossest Offences against
+Chronology, History, and Ancient Politicks; yet This was not thro'
+Ignorance, as is generally supposed, but thro' the too powerful Blaze of
+his Imagination; which, when once raised, made all acquired Knowledge
+vanish and disappear before it. But this Licence in him, as I have said,
+must not be imputed to Ignorance: since as often we may find him, when
+Occasion serves, reasoning up to the Truth of History; and throwing out
+Sentiments as justly adapted to the Circumstances of his Subject, as to
+the Dignity of his Characters, or Dictates of Nature in general.
+
+Then to come to his Knowledge of the _Latin_ Tongue, 'tis certain there is
+a surprising Effusion of _Latin_ Words made _English_, far more than in
+any one _English_ Author I have seen; but we must be cautious to imagine
+this was of his own doing. For the _English_ Tongue, in this Age, began
+extremely to suffer by an inundation of _Latin_: And this, to be sure, was
+occasion'd by the Pedantry of those two Monarchs, _Elizabeth_ and _James_,
+Both great _Latinists_. For it is not to be wonder'd at, if both the Court
+and Schools, equal Flatterers of Power, should adapt themselves to the
+Royal Taste.
+
+But now I am touching on the Question (which has been so frequently
+agitated, yet so entirely undecided) of his Learning and Acquaintance with
+the Languages; an additional Word or two naturally falls in here upon the
+Genius of our Author, as compared with that of _Jonson_ his Contemporary.
+They are confessedly the greatest Writers our Nation could ever boast of
+in the _Drama_. The first, we say, owed all to his prodigious natural
+Genius; and the other a great deal to his Art and Learning. This, if
+attended to, will explain a very remarkable Appearance in their Writings.
+Besides those wonderful Masterpieces of Art and Genius, which each has
+given us, They are the Authors of other Works very unworthy of them: But
+with this Difference, that in _Jonson_'s bad Pieces we don't discover one
+single Trace of the Author of the _Fox_ and _Alchemist_: but in the wild
+extravagant Notes of _Shakespeare_, you every now and then encounter
+Strains that recognize the divine Composer. This Difference may be thus
+accounted for. _Jonson_, as we said before, owing all his Excellence to
+his Art, by which he sometimes strain'd himself to an uncommon Pitch, when
+at other times he unbent and play'd with his Subject, having nothing then
+to support him, it is no wonder he wrote so far beneath himself. But
+_Shakespeare_, indebted more largely to Nature than the Other to acquired
+Talents, in his most negligent Hours could never so totally divest himself
+of his Genius, but that it would frequently break out with astonishing
+Force and Splendor.
+
+As I have never propos'd to dilate farther on the Character of my Author
+than was necessary to explain the Nature and Use of this Edition, I shall
+proceed to consider him as a Genius in Possession of an everlasting Name.
+And how great that Merit must be, which could gain it against all the
+Disadvantages of the horrid Condition in which he had hitherto appear'd!
+Had _Homer_, or any other admir'd Author, first started into Publick so
+maim'd and deform'd, we cannot determine whether they had not sunk for
+ever under the Ignominy of such an ill Appearance. The mangled Condition
+of _Shakespeare_ has been acknowledg'd by Mr. _Rowe_, who published him
+indeed, but neither corrected his Text, nor collated the old Copies. This
+Gentleman had Abilities, and a sufficient Knowledge of his Author, had but
+his Industry been equal to his Talents. The same mangled Condition has
+been acknowledg'd too by Mr. _Pope_, who publish'd him likewise, pretended
+to have collated the old Copies, and yet seldom has corrected the Text but
+to its Injury. I congratulate with the _Manes_ of our Poet, that this
+Gentleman has been sparing in _indulging his private Sense_, as he phrases
+it; for He who tampers with an Author whom he does not understand, must do
+it at the Expence of his Subject. I have made it evident throughout my
+Remarks, that he has frequently inflicted a Wound where he intended a
+Cure. He has acted with regard to our Author, as an Editor, whom LIPSIUS
+mentions, did with regard to MARTIAL; _Inventus est nescio quis_ Popa,
+_qui non_ vitia _ejus_, _sed_ ipsum _excidit_. He has attack'd him like an
+unhandy _Slaughterman_; and not lopp'd off the _Errors_, but the _Poet_.
+
+When this is found to be Fact, how absurd must appear the Praises of such
+an Editor! It seems a moot Point, whether Mr. _Pope_ has done most Injury
+to _Shakespeare_ as his Editor and Encomiast, or Mr. _Rymer_ done him
+Service as his Rival and Censurer. They have Both shewn themselves in an
+equal _Impuissance_ of suspecting, or amending, the corrupted Passages:
+and tho' it be neither Prudence to censure, or commend, what one does not
+understand; yet if a man must do one when he plays the Critick, the latter
+is the more ridiculous Office: And by that _Shakespeare_ suffers most. For
+the natural Veneration which we have for him, makes us apt to swallow
+whatever is given us as _his_, and set off with Encomiums; and hence we
+quit all suspicions of Depravity: On the contrary, the Censure of so
+divine an Author sets us upon his Defence; and this produces an exact
+Scrutiny and Examination, which ends in finding out and discriminating the
+true from the spurious.
+
+It is not with any secret Pleasure that I so frequently animadvert on Mr.
+_Pope_ as a Critick; but there are Provocations which a Man can never
+quite forget. His Libels have been thrown out with so much Inveteracy,
+that, not to dispute whether they _should_ come from a _Christian_, they
+leave it a Question whether they _could_ come from a _Man_. I should be
+loth to doubt, as _Quintus Serenus_ did in a like Case,
+
+
+    Sive homo, seu similis turpissima bestia nobis,
+    Vulnera dente dedit.
+
+
+The Indignation, perhaps, for being represented a _Block-head_, may be as
+strong in us as it is in the Ladies for a Reflexion on their _Beauties_.
+It is certain, I am indebted to Him for some _flagrant Civilities_; and I
+shall willingly devote a Part of my Life to the honest Endeavour of
+quitting Scores: with this Exception however, that I will not return those
+Civilities in his _peculiar_ Strain, but confine myself, at least, to the
+Limits of _common Decency_. I shall ever think it better to want _Wit_,
+than to want _Humanity_: and impartial Posterity may, perhaps, be of my
+Opinion.
+
+But, to return to my Subject; which now calls upon me to inquire into
+those Causes, to which the Depravations of my Author originally may be
+assign'd. We are to consider him as a Writer, of whom no authentic
+Manuscript was left extant; as a Writer, whose Pieces were dispersedly
+perform'd on the several _Stages_ then in Being. And it was the Custom of
+those Days for the Poets to take a Price of the _Players_ for the Pieces
+They from time to time furnish'd; and thereupon it was suppos'd, they had
+no farther Right to print them without the Consent of the _Players_. As it
+was the Interest of the _Companies_ to keep their Plays unpublish'd, when
+any one succeeded, there was a Contest betwixt the Curiosity of the Town,
+who demanded to see it in Print, and the Policy of the _Stagers_, who
+wish'd to secrete it within their own Walls. Hence, many Pieces were taken
+down in Short-hand, and imperfectly copied by Ear, from a
+_Representation_: Others were printed from piece-meal Parts
+surreptitiously obtain'd from the Theatres, uncorrect, and without the
+Poet's Knowledge. To some of these Causes we owe the Train of Blemishes
+that deform those Pieces which stole singly into the World in our Author's
+Lifetime.
+
+There are still other Reasons which may be suppos'd to have affected the
+whole Set. When the _Players_ took upon them to publish his Works intire,
+every Theatre was ransack'd to supply the Copy; and _Parts_ collected,
+which had gone thro' as many Changes as Performers, either from
+Mutilations or Additions made to them. Hence we derive many Chasms and
+Incoherences in the Sense and Matter. Scenes were frequently transposed,
+and shuffled out of their true Place, to humour the Caprice, or suppos'd
+Convenience, of some particular Actor. Hence much Confusion and
+Impropriety has attended and embarrass'd the Business and Fable. To these
+obvious Causes of Corruption it must be added, That our Author has lain
+under the Disadvantage of having his Errors propagated and multiplied by
+Time: because, for near a Century, his Works were publish'd from the
+faulty Copies, without the Assistance of any intelligent Editor: which has
+been the Case likewise of many a _Classic_ Writer.
+
+The Nature of any Distemper once found has generally been the immediate
+Step to a Cure. _Shakespeare_'s Case has in a great Measure resembled That
+of a corrupt _Classic_; and, consequently, the Method of Cure was likewise
+to bear a Resemblance. By what Means, and with what Success, this Cure has
+been effected on ancient Writers, is too well known, and needs no formal
+Illustration. The Reputation, consequent on Tasks of that Nature, invited
+me to attempt the Method here; with this view, the Hopes of restoring to
+the Publick their greatest Poet in his original Purity: after having so
+long lain in a Condition that was a Disgrace to common Sense. To this end
+I have ventur'd on a Labour, that is the first Assay of the kind on any
+modern Author whatsoever.
+
+For the late Edition of _Milton_ by the Learned Dr. _Bentley_ is, in the
+main, a Performance of another Species. It is plain, it was the Intention
+of that Great Man rather to correct and pare off the Excrescencies of the
+_Paradise Lost_, in the Manner that _Tucca_ and _Varius_ were employ'd to
+criticize the _Æneis_ of _Virgil_, than to restore corrupted Passages.
+Hence, therefore, may be seen either the Iniquity or Ignorance of his
+Censurers, who, from some Expressions, would make us believe, the _Doctor_
+every where gives us his Corrections as the original Text of the Author;
+whereas the chief Turn of his Criticism is plainly to shew the World, that
+if _Milton_ did not write as He would have him, he ought to have wrote so.
+
+I thought proper to premise this Observation to the Readers, as it will
+shew that the Critic on _Shakespeare_ is of a quite different Kind. His
+genuine Text is for the most part religiously adhered to, and the numerous
+Faults and Blemishes, purely his own, are left as they were found. Nothing
+is alter'd, but what by the clearest Reasoning can be proved a Corruption
+of the true Text; and the Alteration, a real Restoration of the genuine
+Reading. Nay, so strictly have I strove to give the true Reading, tho'
+sometimes not to the Advantage of my Author, that I have been ridiculously
+ridicul'd for it by Those, who either were iniquitously for turning every
+thing to my Disadvantage, or else were totally ignorant of the true Duty
+of an Editor.
+
+The Science of Criticism, as far as it effects an Editor, seems to be
+reduced to these three Classes; the Emendation of corrupt Passages; the
+Explanation of obscure and difficult ones; and an Inquiry into the
+Beauties and Defects of Composition. This Work is principally confin'd to
+the two former Parts: tho' there are some Specimens interspers'd of the
+latter Kind, as several of the Emendations were best supported, and
+several of the Difficulties best explain'd, by taking notice of the
+Beauties and Defects of the Composition peculiar to this Immortal Poet.
+But this was but occasional, and for the sake only of perfecting the two
+other Parts, which were the proper Objects of the Editor's Labour. The
+third lies open for every willing Undertaker: and I shall be pleas'd to
+see it the Employment of a masterly Pen.
+
+It must necessarily happen, as I have formerly observ'd, that where the
+Assistance of Manuscripts is wanting to set an Author's Meaning right, and
+rescue him from those Errors which have been transmitted down thro' a
+series of incorrect Editions, and a long Intervention of Time, many
+Passages must be desperate, and past a Cure; and their true Sense
+irretrievable either to Care or the Sagacity of Conjecture. But is there
+any Reason therefore to say, That because All cannot be retriev'd, All
+ought to be left desperate? We should shew very little Honesty, or Wisdom,
+to play the Tyrants with an Author's Text; to raze, alter, innovate, and
+overturn, at all Adventures, and to the utter Detriment of his Sense and
+Meaning: But to be so very reserved and cautious, as to interpose no
+Relief or Conjecture, where it manifestly labours and cries out for
+Assistance, seems, on the other hand, an indolent Absurdity.
+
+As there are very few pages in _Shakespeare_, upon which some Suspicions
+of Depravity do not reasonably arise; I have thought it my Duty, in the
+first place, by a diligent and laborious Collation to take in the
+Assistances of all the older Copies.
+
+In his _Historical Plays_, whenever our _English_ Chronicles, and in his
+Tragedies when _Greek_ or _Roman_ Story, could give any Light; no Pains
+have been omitted to set Passages right by comparing my Author with his
+Originals; for as I have frequently observed, he was a close and accurate
+Copier where-ever his _Fable_ was founded on _History_.
+
+Where-ever the Author's Sense is clear and discoverable (tho', perchance,
+low and trivial), I have not by any Innovation tamper'd with his Text, out
+of an Ostentation of endeavouring to make him speak better than the old
+Copies have done.
+
+Where, thro' all the former Editions, a Passage has labour'd under flat
+Nonsense and invincible Darkness, if, by the Addition or Alteration of a
+Letter or two, or a Transposition in the Pointing, I have restored to Him
+both Sense and Sentiment; such Corrections, I am persuaded, will need no
+Indulgence.
+
+And whenever I have taken a greater Latitude and Liberty in amending, I
+have constantly endeavour'd to support my Corrections and Conjectures by
+parallel Passages and Authorities from himself, the surest Means of
+expounding any Author whatsoever. _Cette voïe d'interpreter un Autheur par
+lui-même est plus sure que tous les Commentaires_, says a very learned
+_French_ Critick.
+
+As to my _Notes_ (from which the common and learned Readers of our Author,
+I hope, will derive some Satisfaction), I have endeavour'd to give them a
+Variety in some Proportion to their Number. Where-ever I have ventur'd at
+an Emendation, a _Note_ is constantly subjoin'd to justify and assert the
+Reason of it. Where I only offer a Conjecture, and do not disturb the
+Text, I fairly set forth my Grounds for such Conjecture, and submit it to
+Judgment. Some Remarks are spent in explaining Passages, where the Wit or
+Satire depends on an obscure Point of History: Others, where Allusions are
+to Divinity, Philosophy, or other Branches of Science. Some are added to
+shew where there is a Suspicion of our Author having borrow'd from the
+Ancients: Others, to shew where he is rallying his Contemporaries; or
+where He himself is rallied by them. And some are necessarily thrown in,
+to explain an obscure and obsolete _Term_, _Phrase_, or _Idea_. I once
+intended to have added a complete and copious _Glossary_; but as I have
+been importun'd, and am prepar'd, to give a correct Edition of our
+Author's POEMS (in which many Terms occur that are not to be met with in
+his _Plays_), I thought a _Glossary_ to all _Shakespeare_'s Works more
+proper to attend that Volume.
+
+In reforming an infinite Number of Passages in the _Pointing_, where the
+Sense was before quite lost, I have frequently subjoin'd Notes to shew the
+_deprav'd_, and to prove the _reform'd_, Pointing: a Part of Labour in
+this Work which I could very willingly have spar'd myself. May it not be
+objected, why then have you burden'd us with these Notes? The Answer is
+obvious, and, if I mistake not, very material. Without such Notes, these
+Passages in subsequent Editions would be liable, thro' the Ignorance of
+Printers and Correctors, to fall into the old Confusion: Whereas, a Note
+on every one hinders all possible Return to Depravity, and for ever
+secures them in a State of Purity and Integrity not to be lost or
+forfeited.
+
+Again, as some Notes have been necessary to point out the Detection of the
+corrupted Text, and establish the Restoration of the genuine Readings;
+some others have been as necessary for the Explanation of Passages obscure
+and difficult. To understand the Necessity and Use of this Part of my
+Task, some Particulars of my Author's Character are previously to be
+explain'd. There are _Obscurities_ in him, which are common to him with
+all Poets of the same Species; there are Others, the Issue of the Times he
+liv'd in; and there are others, again, peculiar to himself. The Nature of
+Comic Poetry being entirely satirical, it busies itself more in exposing
+what we call Caprice and Humour, than Vices cognizable to the Laws. The
+_English_, from the Happiness of a free Constitution, and a Turn of Mind
+peculiarly speculative and inquisitive, are observ'd to produce more
+_Humourists_ and a greater Variety of original _Characters_, than any
+other People whatsoever: And These owing their immediate Birth to the
+peculiar Genius of each Age, an infinite Number of Things alluded to,
+glanced at, and expos'd, must needs become obscure, as the _Characters_
+themselves are antiquated and disused. An Editor therefore should be well
+vers'd in the History and Manners of his Author's Age, if he aims at doing
+him a Service in this Respect.
+
+Besides, _Wit_ lying mostly in the Assemblage of _Ideas_, and in the
+putting Those together with Quickness and Variety, wherein can be found
+any Resemblance, or Congruity, to make up pleasant Pictures, and agreeable
+Visions in the Fancy; the Writer, who aims at Wit, must of course range
+far and wide for Materials. Now, the Age in which _Shakespeare_ liv'd,
+having, above all others, a wonderful Affection to appear Learned, They
+declined vulgar Images, such as are immediately fetch'd from Nature, and
+rang'd thro' the Circle of the Sciences to fetch their Ideas from thence.
+But as the Resemblances of such Ideas to the Subject must necessarily lie
+very much out of the common Way, and every Piece of Wit appear a Riddle to
+the Vulgar; This, that should have taught them the forced, quaint,
+unnatural Tract they were in (and induce them to follow a more natural
+One), was the very Thing that kept them attach'd to it. The ostentatious
+Affectation of abstruse Learning, peculiar to that Time, the Love that Men
+naturally have to every Thing that looks like Mystery, fixed them down to
+this Habit of Obscurity. Thus became the Poetry of DONNE (tho' the
+wittiest Man of that Age) nothing but a continued Heap of Riddles. And our
+_Shakespeare_, with all his easy Nature about him, for want of the
+Knowledge of the true Rules of Art, falls frequently into this vicious
+Manner.
+
+The third Species of _Obscurities_ which deform our Author, as the Effects
+of his own Genius and Character, are Those that proceed from his peculiar
+Manner of _Thinking_, and as peculiar a Manner of _cloathing_ those
+_Thoughts_. With regard to his _Thinking_, it is certain that he had a
+general Knowledge of all the Sciences: But his Acquaintance was rather
+That of a Traveller, than a Native. Nothing in Philosophy was unknown to
+him; but every Thing in it had the Grace and Force of Novelty. And as
+Novelty is one main Source of Admiration, we are not to wonder that He has
+perpetual Allusions to the most recondite Parts of the Sciences: and This
+was done not so much out of Affectation, as the Effect of Admiration begot
+by Novelty. Then, as to his _Style_ and _Diction_, we may much more justly
+apply to SHAKESPEARE what a celebrated Writer has said of MILTON; _Our
+Language sunk under him, and was unequal to that Greatness of Soul which
+furnish'd him with such glorious Conceptions._ He therefore frequently
+uses old Words, to give his Diction an Air of Solemnity; as he coins
+others, to express the Novelty and Variety of his Ideas.
+
+Upon every distinct Species of these _Obscurities_ I have thought it my
+Province to employ a Note, for the Service of my Author, and the
+Entertainment of my Readers. A few transient Remarks too I have not
+scrupled to intermix, upon the Poet's _Negligences_ and _Omissions_ in
+point of Art; but I have done it always in such a Manner as will testify
+my Deference and Veneration for the immortal Author. Some Censurers of
+_Shakespeare_, and particularly Mr. _Rymer_, have taught me to distinguish
+betwixt the _Railer_ and _Critick_. The Outrage of his Quotations is so
+remarkably violent, so push'd beyond all bounds of Decency and Sober
+Reasoning, that it quite carries over the Mark at which it was levell'd.
+Extravagant Abuse throws off the Edge of the intended Disparagement, and
+turns the Madman's Weapon into his own Bosom. In short, as to _Rymer_,
+This is my Opinion of him from his _Criticisms_ on the _Tragedies_ of the
+Last Age. He writes with great Vivacity, and appears to have been a
+Scholar: but, as for his Knowledge of the Art of Poetry, I can't perceive
+it was any deeper than his Acquaintance with _Bossu_ and _Dacier_, from
+whom he has transcrib'd many of his best Reflexions. The late Mr. _Gildon_
+was one attached to _Rymer_ by a similar way of Thinking and Studies. They
+were both of that Species of Criticks, who are desirous of displaying
+their Powers rather in finding Faults, than in consulting the Improvement
+of the World: the _hypercritical_ Part of the Science of _Criticism_.
+
+I had not mentioned the modest Liberty I have here and there taken of
+animadverting on my Author, but that I was willing to obviate in time the
+splenetick Exaggerations of my Adversaries on this Head. From past
+Experiments I have reason to be conscious in what Light this Attempt may
+be placed: and that what I call a _modest Liberty_, will, by a little of
+their Dexterity, be inverted into downright _Impudence_. From a hundred
+mean and dishonest Artifices employ'd to discredit this Edition, and to
+cry down its Editor, I have all the Grounds in nature to beware of
+Attacks. But tho' the Malice of Wit, join'd to the Smoothness of
+Versification, may furnish some Ridicule; Fact, I hope, will be able to
+stand its Ground against Banter and Gaiety.
+
+It has been my Fate, it seems, as I thought it my Duty, to discover some
+_Anachronisms_ in our Author; which might have slept in Obscurity but for
+_this Restorer_, as Mr. _Pope_ is pleas'd affectionately to stile me: as,
+for Instance, where _Aristotle_ is mentioned by _Hector_ in _Troilus_ and
+_Cressida_: and _Galen_, _Cato_, and _Alexander_ the Great, in
+_Coriolanus_. These, in Mr. _Pope_'s Opinion, are Blunders, which the
+Illiteracy of the first Publishers of his Works has father'd upon the
+Poet's Memory: _it not being at all credible, that These could be the
+Errors of any Man who had the least Tincture of a School, or the least
+Conversation with Such as had._ But I have sufficiently proved, in the
+course of my _Notes_, that such _Anachronisms_ were the Effect of Poetic
+Licence, rather than of Ignorance in our Poet. And if I may be permitted
+to ask a modest Question by the way, Why may not I restore an
+_Anachronism_ really made by our Author, as well as Mr. _Pope_ take the
+Privilege to fix others upon him, which he never had it in his Head to
+make; as I may venture to affirm he had not, in the Instance of Sir
+_Francis Drake_, to which I have spoke in the proper Place?
+
+But who shall dare make any Words about this Freedom of Mr. _Pope_'s
+towards _Shakespeare_, if it can be prov'd, that, in his Fits of
+Criticism, he makes no more Ceremony with good _Homer_ himself? To try,
+then, a Criticism of his own advancing; In the 8th Book of the _Odyssey_,
+where _Demodocus_ sings the Episode of the Loves of _Mars_ and _Venus_;
+and that, upon their being taken in the Net by _Vulcan_,
+
+
+    ----The God of Arms
+    Must pay the Penalty for lawless Charms;
+
+
+Mr. _Pope_ is so kind gravely to inform us, "That _Homer_ in This, as in
+many other Places, seems to allude to the Laws of _Athens_, where Death
+was the Punishment of Adultery." But how is this significant Observation
+made out? Why, who can possibly object any Thing to the contrary?--_Does
+not _PAUSANIAS_ relate that _DRACO_ the Lawgiver to the _ATHENIANS_
+granted Impunity to any Person that took Revenge upon an Adulterer? And
+was it not also the Institution of _SOLON_, that if Any One took an
+Adulterer in the Fact, he might use him as he pleas'd?_ These Things are
+very true: and to see what a good Memory, and sound Judgment in
+Conjunction can atchieve! Tho' _Homer_'s Date is not determin'd down to a
+single Year, yet 'tis pretty generally agreed that he liv'd above 300
+Years before _Draco_ and _Solon_: And That, it seems, has made him _seem_
+to allude to the very Laws which these Two Legislators propounded about
+300 Years after. If this Inference be not something like an _Anachronism_
+or _Prolepsis_, I'll look once more into my Lexicons for the true Meaning
+of the Words. It appears to me that somebody besides _Mars_ and _Venus_
+has been caught in a Net by this Episode: and I could call in other
+Instances to confirm what treacherous Tackle this Net-work is, if not
+cautiously handled.
+
+How just, notwithstanding, I have been in detecting the _Anachronisms_ of
+my Author, and in defending him for the Use of them, our late Editor seems
+to think, they should rather have slept in Obscurity: and the having
+discovered them is sneer'd at, as a sort of wrong-headed Sagacity.
+
+The numerous Corrections which I have made of the Poet's Text in my
+_Shakespeare Restor'd_, and which the Publick have been so kind to think
+well of, are, in the Appendix of Mr. _Pope_'s last Edition, slightingly
+call'd _Various Readings, Guesses_, &c. He confesses to have inserted as
+many of them as he judg'd of any the least Advantage to the Poet; but
+says, that the whole amounted to about 25 Words: and pretends to have
+annexed a compleat List of the rest, which were not worth his embracing.
+Whoever has read my Book, will at one Glance see, how in both these Points
+Veracity is strain'd, so an Injury might but be done. _Malus, etsi obesse
+non potest, tamen cogitat._
+
+Another Expedient, to make my Work appear of a trifling Nature, has been
+an Attempt to depreciate _Literal Criticism_. To this end, and to pay a
+servile Compliment to Mr. _Pope_, an _Anonymous_ Writer has, like a
+_Scotch_ Pedlar in Wit, unbraced his Pack on the Subject. But, that his
+Virulence might not seem to be levelled singly at me, he has done me the
+Honour to join Dr. _Bentley_ in the Libel. I was in hopes, we should have
+been both abused with Smartness of Satire at least, tho' not with Solidity
+of Argument; that it might have been worth some Reply in Defence of the
+Science attacked. But I may fairly say of this Author, as _Falstaffe_ does
+of _Poins_;--_Hang him, Baboon! his Wit is as thick as _TEWKSBURY_ Mustard;
+there is no more Conceit in him, than is in a _MALLET. If it be not
+Prophanation to set the Opinion of the divine _Longinus_ against such a
+Scribler, he tells us expressly, "That to make a Judgment upon _Words_
+(and _Writings_) is the most consummate Fruit of much Experience." {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}
+{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}. Whenever Words
+are depraved, the Sense of course must be corrupted; and thence the
+Reader's betray'd into a false Meaning.
+
+If the _Latin_ and _Greek_ Languages have receiv'd the greatest Advantages
+imaginable from the Labours of the Editors and Criticks of the two last
+Ages; by whose Aid and Assistance the Grammarians have been enabled to
+write infinitely better in that Art than even the preceding Grammarians,
+who wrote when those Tongues flourish'd as living Languages: I should
+account it a peculiar Happiness, that, by the faint Assay I have made in
+this Work, a Path might be chalk'd out, for abler Hands, by which to
+derive the same Advantages to our own Tongue: a Tongue, which, tho' it
+wants none of the fundamental Qualities of an universal Language, yet, as
+a _noble Writer_ says, lisps and stammers as in its Cradle; and has
+produced little more towards its polishing than Complaints of its
+Barbarity.
+
+Having now run thro' all those Points which I intended should make any
+Part of this Dissertation, and having in my _former_ Edition made publick
+Acknowledgments of the Assistances lent me, I shall conclude with a brief
+Account of the Methods taken in _This_.
+
+It was thought proper, in order to reduce the Bulk and Price of the
+Impression, that the Notes, where-ever they would admit of it, might be
+abridg'd: for which Reason I have curtail'd a great Quantity of Such, in
+which Explanations were too prolix, or Authorities in Support of an
+Emendation too numerous: and Many I have entirely expung'd, which were
+judg'd rather Verbose and Declamatory (and, so, Notes merely of
+Ostentation), than necessary or instructive.
+
+The few literal Errors which had escap'd Notice, for want of Revisals, in
+the former Edition, are here reform'd: and the Pointing of innumerable
+Passages is regulated, with all the Accuracy I am capable of.
+
+I shall decline making any farther Declaration of the Pains I have taken
+upon my Author, because it was my Duty, as his Editor, to publish him with
+my best Care and Judgment: and because I am sensible, all such
+Declarations are construed to be laying a sort of a Debt on the Publick.
+As the former Edition has been received with much Indulgence, I ought to
+make my Acknowledgments to the Town for their favourable Opinion of it:
+and I shall always be proud to think That Encouragement the best Payment I
+can hope to receive from my poor Studies.
+
+
+
+
+
+SIR THOMAS HANMER: PREFACE TO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE. 1744.
+
+
+What the Publick is here to expect is a true and correct Edition of
+_Shakespear_'s works cleared from the corruptions with which they have
+hitherto abounded. One of the great Admirers of this incomparable Author
+hath made it the amusement of his leisure hours for many years past to
+look over his writings with a careful eye, to note the obscurities and
+absurdities introduced into the text, and according to the best of his
+judgment to restore the genuine sense and purity of it. In this he
+proposed nothing to himself but his private satisfaction in making his own
+copy as perfect as he could: but as the emendations multiplied upon his
+hands, other Gentlemen equally fond of the Author desired to see them, and
+some were so kind as to give their assistance by communicating their
+observations and conjectures upon difficult passages which had occurred to
+them. Thus by degrees the work growing more considerable than was at first
+expected, they who had the opportunity of looking into it, too partial
+perhaps in their judgment, thought it worth being made publick; and he,
+who hath with difficulty yielded to their perswasions, is far from
+desiring to reflect upon the late Editors for the omissions and defects
+which they left to be supplied by others who should follow them in the
+same province. On the contrary, he thinks the world much obliged to them
+for the progress they made in weeding out so great a number of blunders
+and mistakes as they have done, and probably he who hath carried on the
+work might never have thought of such an undertaking if he had not found a
+considerable part so done to his hands.
+
+From what causes it proceeded that the works of this Author in the first
+publication of them were more injured and abused than perhaps any that
+ever pass'd the Press, hath been sufficiently explained in the Preface to
+Mr. _Pope_'s Edition which is here subjoined, and there needs no more to
+be said upon that subject. This only the Reader is desired to bear in
+mind, that as the corruptions are more numerous and of a grosser kind than
+can well be conceived but by those who have looked nearly into them; so in
+the correcting them this rule hath been most strictly observed, not to
+give a loose to fancy, or indulge a licentious spirit of criticism, as if
+it were fit for any one to presume to judge what _Shakespear_ ought to
+have written, instead of endeavouring to discover truly and retrieve what
+he did write: and so great caution hath been used in this respect, that no
+alterations have been made but what the sense necessarily required, what
+the measure of the verse often helped to point out, and what the
+similitude of words in the false reading and in the true, generally
+speaking, appeared very well to justify.
+
+Most of those passages are here thrown to the bottom of the page and
+rejected as spurious, which were stigmatized as such in Mr. _Pope_'s
+Edition; and it were to be wished that more had then undergone the same
+sentence. The promoter of the present Edition hath ventured to discard but
+few more upon his own judgment, the most considerable of which is that
+wretched piece of ribaldry in King _Henry V._ put into the mouths of the
+_French_ Princess and an old Gentlewoman, improper enough as it is all in
+_French_ and not intelligible to an _English_ audience, and yet that
+perhaps is the best thing that can be said of it. There can be no doubt
+but a great deal more of that low stuff which disgraces the works of this
+great Author, was foisted in by the Players after his death, to please the
+vulgar audiences by which they subsisted: and though some of the poor
+witticisms and conceits must be supposed to have fallen from his pen, yet
+as he hath put them generally into the mouths of low and ignorant people,
+so it is to be remember'd that he wrote for the Stage, rude and unpolished
+as it then was; and the vicious taste of the age must stand condemned for
+them, since he hath left upon record a signal proof how much he despised
+them. In his Play of _The Merchant of Venice_ a Clown is introduced
+quibbling in a miserable manner, upon which one who bears the character of
+a man of sense makes the following reflection: _How every fool can play
+upon a word! I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence,
+and discourse grow commendable in none but parrots._ He could hardly have
+found stronger words to express his indignation at those false pretences
+to wit then in vogue; and therefore though such trash is frequently
+interspersed in his writings, it would be unjust to cast it as an
+imputation upon his taste and judgment and character as a Writer.
+
+There being many words in _Shakespear_ which are grown out of use and
+obsolete, and many borrowed from other languages which are not enough
+naturalized or known among us, a Glossary is added at the end of the work,
+for the explanation of all those terms which have hitherto been so many
+stumbling-blocks to the generality of Readers; and where there is any
+obscurity in the text not arising from the words but from a reference to
+some antiquated customs now forgotten, or other causes of that kind, a
+note is put at the bottom of the page to clear up the difficulty.
+
+With these several helps if that rich vein of sense which runs through the
+works of this Author can be retrieved in every part and brought to appear
+in its true light, and if it may be hoped without presumption that this is
+here effected; they who love and admire him will receive a new pleasure,
+and all probably will be more ready to join in doing him justice, who does
+great honour to his country as a rare and perhaps a singular Genius: one
+who hath attained an high degree of perfection in those two great branches
+of Poetry, Tragedy and Comedy, different as they are in their natures from
+each other; and who may be said without partiality to have equalled, if
+not excelled, in both kinds, the best writers of any age or country who
+have thought it glory enough to distinguish themselves in either.
+
+Since therefore other nations have taken care to dignify the works of
+their most celebrated Poets with the fairest impressions beautified with
+the ornaments of sculpture, well may our _Shakespear_ be thought to
+deserve no less consideration: and as a fresh acknowledgment hath lately
+been paid to his merit, and a high regard to his name and memory, by
+erecting his Statue at a publick expence; so it is desired that this new
+Edition of his works, which hath cost some attention and care, may be
+looked upon as another small monument designed and dedicated to his
+honour.
+
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM WARBURTON: PREFACE TO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE. 1747.
+
+
+It hath been no unusual thing for Writers, when dissatisfied with the
+Patronage or Judgment of their own Times, to appeal to Posterity for a
+fair Hearing. Some have even thought fit to apply to it in the first
+Instance; and to decline Acquaintance with the Public till Envy and
+Prejudice had quite subsided. But, of all the Trusters to Futurity,
+commend me to the Author of the following Poems, who not only left it to
+Time to do him Justice as it would, but to find him out as it could. For,
+what between too great Attention to his Profit as a Player, and too little
+to his Reputation as a Poet, his Works, left to the Care of Door-keepers
+and Prompters, hardly escaped the common Fate of those Writings, how good
+soever, which are abandon'd to their own Fortune, and unprotected by Party
+or Cabal. At length, indeed, they struggled into Light; but so disguised
+and travested, that no classic Author, after having run ten secular Stages
+thro' the blind Cloisters of Monks and Canons, ever came out in half so
+maimed and mangled a Condition. But for a full Account of his Disorders, I
+refer the Reader to the excellent Discourse which follows, and turn myself
+to consider the Remedies that have been applied to them.
+
+_Shakespear_'s Works, when they escaped the Players, did not fall into
+much better Hands when they came amongst Printers and Booksellers: who, to
+say the Truth, had, at first, but small Encouragement for putting him into
+a better Condition. The stubborn Nonsense, with which he was incrusted,
+occasioned his lying long neglected amongst the common Lumber of the
+Stage. And when that resistless Splendor, which now shoots all around him,
+had, by degrees, broke thro' the Shell of those Impurities, his dazzled
+Admirers became as suddenly insensible to the extraneous Scurf that still
+stuck upon him, as they had been before to the native Beauties that lay
+under it. So that, as then he was thought not to deserve a Cure, he was
+now supposed not to need any.
+
+His growing Eminence, however, required that he should be used with
+Ceremony: And he soon had his Appointment of an _Editor_ in form. But the
+Bookseller, whose dealing was with Wits, having learnt of them, I know not
+what silly Maxim, that _none but a Poet should presume to meddle with a
+Poet_, engaged the ingenious Mr. _Rowe_ to undertake this Employment. A
+Wit indeed he was; but so utterly unacquainted with the whole Business of
+Criticism, that he did not even collate or consult the first Editions of
+the Work he undertook to publish; but contented himself with giving us a
+meagre Account of the Author's Life, interlarded with some common-place
+Scraps from his Writings. The Truth is, _Shakespear_'s Condition was yet
+but ill understood. The Nonsense, now, by consent, received for his own,
+was held in a kind of Reverence for its Age and Author: and thus it
+continued, till another great _Poet_ broke the Charm; by shewing us, that
+the higher we went, the less of it was still to be found.
+
+For the Proprietors, not discouraged by their first unsuccessful Effort,
+in due time made a second; and, tho' they still stuck to their Poets, with
+infinitely more Success in their Choice of Mr. POPE. Who, by the mere
+force of an uncommon Genius, without any particular Study or Profession of
+this Art, discharged the great Parts of it so well as to make his Edition
+the best Foundation for all further Improvements. He separated the genuine
+from the spurious Plays: And, with equal Judgment, tho' not always with
+the same Success, attempted to clear the genuine Plays from the
+interpolated Scenes: He then consulted the old Editions; and, by a careful
+Collation of them, rectified the faulty, and supplied the imperfect
+Reading, in a great number of places: And lastly, in an admirable Preface,
+hath drawn a general, but very lively, Sketch of _Shakespear_'s poetic
+Character; and, in the corrected Text, marked out those peculiar Strokes
+of Genius which were most proper to support and illustrate that Character.
+Thus far Mr. POPE. And altho' much more was to be done before _Shakespear_
+could be restored to himself (such as amending the corrupted Text where
+the printed Books afford no Assistance; explaining his licentious
+Phraseology and obscure Allusions; and illustrating the Beauties of his
+Poetry); yet, with great Modesty and Prudence, our illustrious Editor left
+this to the Critic by Profession.
+
+But nothing will give the common Reader a better idea of the Value of Mr.
+_Pope_'s Edition, than the two Attempts which have been since made, by Mr.
+_Theobald_ and Sir _Thomas Hanmer_, in Opposition to it. Who, altho' they
+concerned themselves only in the _first_ of these three Parts of
+Criticism, the _restoring the Text_ (without any Conception of the
+_second_, or venturing even to touch upon the _third_), yet succeeded so
+very ill in it, that they left their Author in ten times a worse Condition
+than they found him. But, as it was my ill Fortune to have some accidental
+Connexions with these two _Gentlemen_, it will be incumbent on me to be a
+little more particular concerning them.
+
+The One was recommended to me as a poor Man; the Other as a poor Critic:
+and to each of them, at different times, I communicated a great number of
+Observations, which they managed, as they saw fit, to the Relief of their
+several Distresses. As to Mr. _Theobald_, who wanted Money, I allowed him
+to print what I gave him for his own Advantage: and he allowed himself in
+the Liberty of taking one Part for his own, and sequestering another for
+the Benefit, as I supposed, of some future Edition. But, as to the _Oxford
+Editor_, who wanted nothing but what he might very well be without, the
+Reputation of a Critic, I could not so easily forgive him for trafficking
+with my Papers without my Knowledge; and, when that Project fail'd, for
+employing a number of my Conjectures in his Edition against my express
+Desire not to have that Honour done unto me.
+
+Mr. _Theobald_ was naturally turned to Industry and Labour. What he read
+he could transcribe: but, as what he thought, if ever he did think, he
+could but ill express, so he read on; and by that means got a Character of
+Learning, without risquing, to every Observer, the Imputation of wanting a
+better Talent. By a punctilious Collation of the old Books, he corrected
+what was manifestly wrong in the _latter_ Editions, by what was manifestly
+right in the _earlier_. And this is his real merit; and the whole of it.
+For where the Phrase was very obsolete or licentious in the _common_
+Books, or only slightly corrupted in the _other_, he wanted sufficient
+Knowledge of the Progress and various Stages of the _English_ Tongue, as
+well as Acquaintance with the Peculiarity of _Shakespear_'s Language, to
+understand what was right; nor had he either common Judgment to see, or
+critical Sagacity to amend, what was manifestly faulty. Hence he generally
+exerts his conjectural Talent in the wrong Place: He tampers with what is
+found in the _common_ Books; and, in the _old_ ones, omits all Notice of
+_Variations_ the Sense of which he did not understand.
+
+How the _Oxford Editor_ came to think himself qualified for this Office,
+from which his whole Course of Life had been so remote, is still more
+difficult to conceive. For whatever Parts he might have either of Genius
+or Erudition, he was absolutely ignorant of the Art of Criticism, as well
+as the Poetry of that Time, and the Language of his Author: And so far
+from a Thought of examining the _first_ Editions, that he even neglected
+to compare Mr. _Pope_'s, from which he printed his own, with Mr.
+_Theobald_'s; whereby he lost the Advantage of many fine Lines which the
+other had recovered from the old Quartos. Where he trusts to his own
+Sagacity, in what affects the Sense, his Conjectures are generally absurd
+and extravagant, and violating every Rule of Criticism. Tho', in this Rage
+of Correcting, he was not absolutely destitute of all _Art_. For, having a
+Number of my Conjectures before him, he took as many of them as he saw
+fit, to work upon; and by changing them to something, he thought,
+synonymous or similar, he made them his own; and so became a Critic at a
+cheap Expence. But how well he hath succeeded in this, as likewise in his
+Conjectures which are properly his own, will be seen in the course of my
+Remarks: Tho', as he hath declined to give the Reasons for his
+Interpolations, he hath not afforded me so fair a hold of him as Mr.
+_Theobald_ hath done, who was less cautious. But his principal Object was
+to reform his Author's Numbers; and this, which he hath done, on every
+Occasion, by the Insertion or Omission of a set of harmless unconcerning
+Expletives, makes up the gross Body of his innocent Corrections. And so,
+in spite of that extreme Negligence in Numbers which distinguishes the
+first Dramatic Writers, he hath tricked up the old Bard, from Head to
+Foot, in all the finical Exactness of a modern Measurer of Syllables.
+
+For the rest, all the Corrections which these two Editors have made on any
+_reasonable_ Foundation, are here admitted into the Text, and carefully
+assigned to their respective Authors: A piece of Justice which the _Oxford
+Editor_ never did; and which the _Other_ was not always scrupulous in
+observing towards me. To conclude with them in a word, They separately
+possessed those two Qualities which, more than any other, have contributed
+to bring the Art of Criticism into disrepute, _Dulness of Apprehension_,
+and _Extravagance of Conjecture_.
+
+I am now to give some Account of the present Undertaking. For as to all
+those Things which have been published under the titles of _Essays_,
+_Remarks_, _Observations_, &c. on _Shakespear_, (if you except some
+critical Notes on _Macbeth_, given as a Specimen of a projected Edition,
+and written, as appears, by a Man of Parts and Genius) the rest are
+absolutely below a serious Notice.
+
+The whole a Critic can do for an Author who deserves his Service, is to
+correct the faulty Text; to remark the Peculiarities of Language; to
+illustrate the obscure Allusions; and to explain the Beauties and Defects
+of Sentiment or Composition. And surely, if ever Author had a Claim to
+this Service, it was our _Shakespear_: Who, widely excelling in the
+Knowledge of Human Nature, hath given to his infinitely varied Pictures of
+it, such Truth of Design, such Force of Drawing, such Beauty of Colouring,
+as was hardly ever equalled by any Writer, whether his Aim was the Use, or
+only the Entertainment of Mankind. The Notes in this Edition, therefore,
+take in the whole Compass of Criticism.
+
+I. The first sort is employed in restoring the Poet's genuine Text; but in
+those Places only where it labours with inextricable Nonsense. In which,
+how much soever I may have given Scope to critical Conjecture, where the
+old Copies failed me, I have indulged nothing to Fancy or Imagination; but
+have religiously observed the severe Canons of literal Criticism; as may
+be seen from the Reasons accompanying every Alteration of the common Text.
+Nor would a different Conduct have become a Critic whose greatest
+Attention, in this part, was to vindicate the established Reading from
+Interpolations occasioned by the fanciful Extravagancies of others. I once
+intended to have given the Reader a _body of Canons_, for literal
+Criticism, drawn out in form; as well such as concern the Art in general,
+as those that arise from the Nature and Circumstances of our Author's
+Works in particular. And this for two Reasons. First, To give the
+_unlearned Reader_ a just Idea, and consequently a better Opinion of the
+Art of Criticism, now sunk very low in the popular Esteem, by the Attempts
+of some who would needs exercise it without either natural or acquired
+Talents; and by the ill Success of others, who seemed to have lost both,
+when they came to try them upon _English_ Authors. Secondly, To deter the
+_unlearned Writer_ from wantonly trifling with an Art he is a Stranger to,
+at the Expence of his own Reputation, and the Integrity of the Text of
+established Authors. But these Uses may be well supplied by what is
+occasionally said upon the Subject, in the Course of the following
+Remarks.
+
+II. The second sort of Notes consists in an Explanation of the Author's
+Meaning, when, by one or more of these Causes, it becomes obscure; either
+from a _licentious Use of Terms_; or a _hard or ungrammatical
+Construction_; or lastly, from _far-fetch'd or quaint Allusions_.
+
+1. This licentious Use of Words is almost peculiar to the Language of
+_Shakespear_. To common Terms he hath affixed Meanings of his own,
+unauthorised by Use, and not to be justified by Analogy. And this Liberty
+he hath taken with the noblest Parts of Speech, such as _Mixed-modes_;
+which, as they are most susceptible of Abuse, so their Abuse most hurts
+the Clearness of the Discourse. The Critics (to whom _Shakespear_'s
+Licence was still as much a Secret as his Meaning, which that Licence had
+obscured) fell into two contrary Mistakes; but equally injurious to his
+Reputation and his Writings. For some of them, observing a Darkness that
+pervaded his whole Expression, have censured him for Confusion of Ideas
+and Inaccuracy of reasoning. _In the Neighing of a Horse (__SAYS__ Rymer),
+or in the Growling of a Mastiff, there is a Meaning, there is a lively
+Expression, and, may I say, more Humanity than many times in the tragical
+Flights of __SHAKESPEAR__._ The Ignorance of which Censure is of a Piece
+with its Brutality. The Truth is, no one thought clearer, or argued more
+closely than this immortal Bard. But his Superiority of Genius less
+needing the Intervention of Words in the Act of Thinking, when he came to
+draw out his Contemplations into Discourse, he took up (as he was hurried
+on by the Torrent of his Matter) with the first Words that lay in his Way;
+and if, amongst these, there were two _Mixed-modes_ that had but a
+principal Idea in common, it was enough for him; he regarded them as
+synonymous, and would use the one for the other without Fear or
+Scruple.--Again, there have been others, such as the two last Editors, who
+have fallen into a contrary Extreme, and regarded _Shakespear_'s Anomalies
+(as we may call them) amongst the Corruptions of his Text; which,
+therefore, they have cashiered in great Numbers, to make room for a Jargon
+of their own. This hath put me to additional Trouble; for I had not only
+their Interpolations to throw out again, but the genuine Text to replace,
+and establish in its stead; which, in many Cases, could not be done
+without shewing the peculiar Sense of the Terms, and explaining the Causes
+which led the Poet to so perverse a use of them. I had it once, indeed, in
+my Design, to give a general alphabetic _Glossary_ of these Terms; but as
+each of them is explained in its proper Place, there seemed the less
+Occasion for such an Index.
+
+2. The Poet's hard and unnatural Construction had a different Original.
+This was the Effect of mistaken Art and Design. The Public Taste was in
+its Infancy; and delighted (as it always does during that State) in the
+high and turgid; which leads the Writer to disguise a vulgar expression
+with hard and forced construction, whereby the Sentence frequently becomes
+cloudy and dark. Here, his Critics shew their modesty, and leave him to
+himself. For the arbitrary change of a Word doth little towards dispelling
+an obscurity that ariseth, not from the licentious use of a single Term,
+but from the unnatural arrangement of a whole Sentence. And they risqued
+nothing by their silence. For _Shakespear_ was too clear in Fame to be
+suspected of a want of Meaning; and too high in Fashion for any one to own
+he needed a Critic to find it out. Not but, in his best works, we must
+allow, he is often so natural and flowing, so pure and correct, that he is
+even a model for stile and language.
+
+3. As to his far-fetched and quaint Allusions, these are often a cover to
+common thoughts; just as his hard construction is to common expression.
+When they are not so, the Explanation of them has this further advantage,
+that, in clearing the Obscurity, you frequently discover some latent
+conceit not unworthy of his Genius.
+
+III. The third and last sort of Notes is concerned in a critical
+explanation of the Author's Beauties and Defects; but chiefly of his
+Beauties, whether in Stile, Thought, Sentiment, Character, or Composition.
+An odd humour of finding fault hath long prevailed amongst the Critics; as
+if nothing were worth _remarking_ that did not, at the same time, deserve
+to be reproved. Whereas the public Judgment hath less need to be assisted
+in what it shall reject, than in what it ought to prize; Men being
+generally more ready at spying Faults than in discovering Beauties. Nor is
+the value they set upon a Work, a certain proof that they understand it.
+For 'tis ever seen, that half a dozen Voices of credit give the lead: And
+if the Publick chance to be in good humour, or the Author much in their
+favour, the People are sure to follow. Hence it is that the true Critic
+hath so frequently attached himself to Works of established reputation;
+not to teach the World to _admire_, which, in those circumstances, to say
+the truth, they are apt enough to do of themselves; but to teach them how
+_with reason to admire_: No easy matter, I will assure you, on the subject
+in question: For tho' it be very true, as Mr. _Pope_ hath observed, that
+_Shakespear is the fairest and fullest subject for criticism_, yet it is
+not such a sort of criticism as may be raised mechanically on the Rules
+which _Dacier_, _Rapin_, and _Bossu_ have collected from Antiquity; and of
+which such kind of Writers as _Rymer_, _Gildon_, _Dennis_, and _Oldmixon_,
+have only gathered and chewed the Husks: nor on the other hand is it to be
+formed on the plan of those crude and superficial Judgments, on books and
+things, with which a certain celebrated Paper so much abounds; too good
+indeed to be named with the Writers last mentioned, but being unluckily
+mistaken for a _Model_, because it was an _Original_, it hath given rise
+to a deluge of the worst sort of critical Jargon; I mean that which looks
+most like sense. But the kind of criticism here required is such as
+judgeth our Author by those only Laws and Principles on which he wrote,
+NATURE, and COMMON-SENSE.
+
+Our Observations, therefore, being thus extensive, will, I presume, enable
+the Reader to form a right judgment of this favourite Poet, without
+drawing out his Character, as was once intended, in a continued discourse.
+
+These, such as they are, were amongst my younger amusements, when, many
+years ago, I used to turn over these sort of Writers to unbend myself from
+more serious applications: And what, certainly, the Public, at this time
+of day, had never been troubled with, but for the conduct of the two last
+Editors, and the persuasions of dear Mr. POPE; whose memory and name,
+
+
+    ----semper acerbum,
+    Semper honoratum (sic Di voluistis) habebo.
+
+
+He was desirous I should give a new Edition of this Poet, as he thought it
+might contribute to put a stop to a prevailing folly of altering the Text
+of celebrated Authors without Talents or Judgment. And he was willing that
+_his_ Edition should be melted down into _mine_, as it would, he said,
+afford him (so great is the modesty of an ingenuous temper) a fit
+opportunity of confessing his Mistakes.(40) In memory of our Friendship, I
+have, therefore, made it our joint Edition. His admirable Preface is here
+added; all his Notes are given, with his name annexed; the Scenes are
+divided according to his regulation; and the most beautiful passages
+distinguished, as in his book, with inverted commas. In imitation of him,
+I have done the same by as many others as I thought most deserving of the
+Reader's attention, and have marked them with _double_ commas.
+
+If, from all this, _Shakespear_ or good Letters have received any
+advantage, and the Public any benefit or entertainment, the thanks are due
+to the _Proprietors_, who have been at the expence of procuring this
+Edition. And I should be unjust to several deserving Men of a reputable
+and useful Profession, if I did not, on this occasion, acknowledge the
+fair dealing I have always found amongst them; and profess my sense of the
+unjust Prejudice which lies against them; whereby they have been,
+hitherto, unable to procure that security for their Property, which they
+see the rest of their Fellow-Citizens enjoy: A prejudice in part arising
+from the frequent _Piracies_ (as they are called) committed by Members of
+their own Body. But such kind of Members no Body is without. And it would
+be hard that this should be turned to the discredit of the honest part of
+the Profession, who suffer more from such Injuries than any other men. It
+hath, in part too, arisen from the clamours of profligate Scriblers, ever
+ready, for a piece of Money, to prostitute their bad sense for or against
+any Cause prophane or sacred; or in any Scandal public or private: These
+meeting with little encouragement from Men of account in the Trade (who
+even in this enlightened Age are not the very worst Judges or Rewarders of
+merit), apply themselves to People of Condition; and support their
+importunities by false complaints against _Booksellers_.
+
+But I should now, perhaps, rather think of my own Apology, than busy
+myself in the defence of others. I shall have some _Tartuffe_ ready, on
+the first appearance of this Edition, to call out again, and tell me, that
+_I suffer myself to be wholly diverted from my purpose by these matters
+less suitable to my clerical Profession_. "Well, but," says a friend, "why
+not take so candid an intimation in good part? Withdraw yourself, again,
+as you are bid, into the clerical Pale; examine the Records of sacred and
+profane Antiquity; and, on them, erect a Work to the confusion of
+Infidelity." Why, I have done all this, and more: And hear now what the
+same Men have said to it. They tell me, _I have wrote to the wrong and
+injury of Religion, and furnished out more handles for Unbelievers_. "Oh
+now the secret's out; and you may have your pardon, I find, upon easier
+terms. 'Tis only, to write no more."--Good Gentlemen! and shall I not
+oblige them? They would gladly _obstruct_ my way to those things which
+every Man, who _endeavours well_ in his Profession, must needs think he
+has some claim to, when he sees them given to those who never did
+_endeavour_; at the same time that they would _deter_ me from taking those
+advantages which Letters enable me to procure for myself. If then I am to
+write no more (tho' as much out of my Profession as they may please to
+represent this Work, I suspect their modesty would not insist on a
+scrutiny of our several applications of this profane profit and their
+purer gains); if, I say, I am to write no more, let me at least give the
+Public, who have a better pretence to demand it of me, some reason for my
+presenting them with these amusements. Which, if I am not much mistaken,
+may be excused by the best and fairest _Examples_; and, what is more, may
+be justified on the surer _reason of things_.
+
+The great Saint CHRYSOSTOM, a name consecrated to immortality by his
+Virtue and Eloquence, is known to have been so fond of _Aristophanes_ as
+to wake with him at his studies, and to sleep with him under his pillow:
+and I never heard that this was objected either to his Piety or his
+Preaching, not even in those times of pure Zeal and primitive Religion.
+Yet, in respect of _Shakespear_'s great sense, _Aristophanes_'s best wit
+is but buffoonry; and, in comparison of _Aristophanes_'s Freedoms,
+_Shakespear_ writes with the purity of a Vestal. But they will say, St.
+_Chrysostom_ contracted a fondness for the comic Poet _for the sake of his
+Greek_. To this, indeed, I have nothing to reply. Far be it from me to
+insinuate so unscholarlike a thing, as if We had the same Use for good
+_English_ that a _Greek_ had for his _Attic_ elegance. Critic _Kuster_, in
+a taste and language peculiar to Grammarians of a certain order, hath
+decreed, that _the History and Chronology of __GREEK__ Words is the most
+SOLID entertainment of a Man of Letters_.
+
+I fly, then, to a higher Example, much nearer home, and still more in
+point, The famous University of OXFORD. This illustrious Body, which hath
+long so justly held, and, with such equity, dispensed, the chief honours
+of the learned World, thought good Letters so much interested in correct
+Editions of the best _English_ Writers, that they, very lately, in their
+publick Capacity, undertook _one_, of this very Author, by subscription.
+And if the Editor hath not discharged his Task with suitable abilities for
+one so much honoured by them, this was not their fault but his, who thrust
+himself into the employment. After such an Example, it would be weakening
+any defence to seek further for Authorities. All that can be now decently
+urged is the _reason of the thing_; and this I shall do, more for the sake
+of that truly venerable Body than my own.
+
+Of all the literary exercitations of speculative Men, whether designed for
+the use or entertainment of the World, there are none of so much
+importance, or what are more our immediate concern, than those which let
+us into the knowledge of our Nature. Others may exercise the Reason, or
+amuse the Imagination; but these only can improve the Heart, and form the
+human Mind to Wisdom. Now, in this Science, our _Shakespear_ is confessed
+to occupy the foremost place; whether we consider the amazing sagacity
+with which he investigates every hidden spring and wheel of human Action;
+or his happy manner of communicating this knowledge, in the just and
+living paintings which he has given us of all our Passions, Appetites, and
+Pursuits. These afford a lesson which can never be too often repeated, or
+too constantly inculcated; And, to engage the Reader's due attention to
+it, hath been one of the principal objects of this Edition.
+
+As this Science (whatever profound Philosophers may think) is, to the
+rest, _in Things_; so, _in Words_ (whatever supercilious Pedants may
+talk), every one's mother tongue is to all other Languages. This hath
+still been the Sentiment of Nature and true Wisdom. Hence, the greatest
+men of Antiquity never thought themselves better employed than in
+cultivating their own country idiom. So _Lycurgus_ did honour to _Sparta_,
+in giving the first compleat Edition of _Homer_; and _Cicero_, to _Rome_,
+in correcting the Works of _Lucretius_. Nor do we want Examples of the
+same good sense in modern Times, even amidst the cruel inrodes that Art
+and Fashion have made upon Nature and the simplicity of Wisdom. _Ménage_,
+the greatest name in _France_ for all kind of philologic Learning, prided
+himself in writing critical Notes on their best lyric Poet, _Malherbe_:
+And our greater _Selden_, when he thought it might reflect credit on his
+Country, did not disdain even to comment a very ordinary Poet, one
+_Michael Drayton_. But the _English_ tongue, at this Juncture, deserves
+and demands our particular regard. It hath, by means of the many excellent
+Works of different kinds composed in it, engaged the notice, and become
+the study, of almost every curious and learned Foreigner, so as to be
+thought even a part of literary accomplishment. This must needs make it
+deserving of a critical attention: And its being yet destitute of a Test
+or Standard to apply to, in cases of doubt or difficulty, shews how much
+it wants that attention. For we have neither GRAMMAR nor DICTIONARY,
+neither Chart nor Compass, to guide us through this wide sea of Words. And
+indeed how should we? since both are to be composed and finished on the
+Authority of our best established Writers. But their Authority can be of
+little use till the Text hath been correctly settled, and the Phraseology
+critically examined. As, then, by these aids, a _Grammar_ and
+_Dictionary_, planned upon the best rules of Logic and Philosophy (and
+none but such will deserve the name), are to be procured; the forwarding
+of this will be a general concern: For, as _Quintilian_ observes,
+"Verborum _proprietas_ ac _differentia_ omnibus, qui sermonem curæ habent,
+debet esse communis." By this way, the _Italians_ have brought their
+tongue to a degree of Purity and Stability which no living Language ever
+attained unto before. It is with pleasure I observe, that these things now
+begin to be understood amongst ourselves; and that I can acquaint the
+Public, we may soon expect very elegant Editions of _Fletcher_ and
+_Milton_'s _Paradise Lost_ from Gentlemen of distinguished Abilities and
+Learning. But this interval of good sense, as it may be short, is indeed
+but new. For I remember to have heard of a very learned Man, who, not long
+since, formed a design of giving a more correct Edition of _Spenser_; and,
+without doubt, would have performed it well; but he was dissuaded from his
+purpose by his Friends, as beneath the dignity of a Professor of the
+occult Sciences. Yet these very Friends, I suppose, would have thought it
+had added lustre to his high Station, to have new-furbished out some dull
+northern Chronicle, or dark Sibylline Ænigma. But let it not be thought
+that what is here said insinuates any thing to the discredit of _Greek_
+and _Latin_ criticism. If the follies of particular Men were sufficient to
+bring any branch of Learning into disrepute, I don't know any that would
+stand in a worse situation than that for which I now apologize. For I
+hardly think there ever appeared, in any _learned_ Language, so execrable
+a heap of nonsense, under the name of Commentaries, as hath been lately
+given us on a certain satyric Poet, of the last Age, by his Editor and
+Coadjutor.
+
+I am sensible how unjustly the very best _classical_ Critics have been
+treated. It is said that our great Philosopher spoke with much contempt of
+the two finest Scholars of this Age, Dr. _Bentley_ and Bishop _Hare_, for
+squabbling, as he expressed it, about an old Play-book; meaning, I
+suppose, _Terence_'s Comedies. But this Story is unworthy of him; tho'
+well enough suiting the fanatic turn of the wild Writer that relates it;
+such censures are amongst the follies of men immoderately given over to
+one Science, and ignorantly undervaluing all the rest. Those learned
+Critics might, and perhaps did, laugh in their turn (tho' still, sure,
+with the same indecency and indiscretion) at that incomparable Man, for
+wearing out a long Life in poring through a Telescope. Indeed, the
+weaknesses of Such are to be mentioned with reverence. But who can bear,
+without indignation, the fashionable cant of every trifling Writer, whose
+insipidity passes, with himself, for politeness, for pretending to be
+shocked, forsooth, with the rude and savage air of _vulgar_ Critics;
+meaning such as _Muretus_, _Scaliger_, _Casaubon_, _Salmasius_,
+_Spanheim_, _Bentley_. When, had it not been for the deathless labours of
+such as these, the western World, at the revival of Letters, had soon
+fallen back again into a state of ignorance and barbarity as deplorable as
+that from which Providence had just redeemed it.
+
+To conclude with an observation of a fine Writer and great Philosopher of
+our own; which I would gladly bind, tho' with all honour, as a Phylactery,
+on the Brow of every awful Grammarian, to teach him at once the _Use_ and
+_Limits_ of his art: WORDS ARE THE MONEY OF FOOLS, AND THE COUNTERS OF
+WISE MEN.
+
+
+
+
+
+SAMUEL JOHNSON: PREFACE TO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE. 1765.
+
+
+That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours
+due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be
+always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope
+for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by
+disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from
+posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the
+regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time.
+
+Antiquity, like every other quality that attracts the notice of mankind,
+has undoubtedly votaries that reverence it, not from reason, but from
+prejudice. Some seem to admire indiscriminately whatever has been long
+preserved, without considering that time has sometimes co-operated with
+chance; all perhaps are more willing to honour past than present
+excellence; and the mind contemplates genius through the shades of age, as
+the eye surveys the sun through artificial opacity. The great contention
+of criticism is to find the faults of the moderns, and the beauties of the
+ancients. While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his
+worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate them by his best.
+
+To works, however, of which the excellence is not absolute and definite,
+but gradual and comparative; to works not raised upon principles
+demonstrative and scientifick, but appealing wholly to observation and
+experience, no other test can be applied than length of duration and
+continuance of esteem. What mankind have long possessed they have often
+examined and compared, and if they persist to value the possession, it is
+because frequent comparisons have confirmed opinion in its favour. As
+among the works of nature no man can properly call a river deep, or a
+mountain high, without the knowledge of many mountains, and many rivers;
+so in the production of genius, nothing can be stiled excellent till it
+has been compared with other works of the same kind. Demonstration
+immediately displays its power, and has nothing to hope or fear from the
+flux of years; but works tentative and experimental must be estimated by
+their proportion to the general and collective ability of man, as it is
+discovered in a long succession of endeavours. Of the first building that
+was raised, it might be with certainty determined that it was round or
+square; but whether it was spacious or lofty must have been referred to
+time. The Pythagorean scale of numbers was at once discovered to be
+perfect; but the poems of Homer we yet know not to transcend the common
+limits of human intelligence, but by remarking that nation after nation,
+and century after century, has been able to do little more than transpose
+his incidents, new name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments.
+
+The reverence due to writings that have long subsisted arises therefore
+not from any credulous confidence in the superior wisdom of past ages, or
+gloomy persuasion of the degeneracy of mankind, but is the consequence of
+acknowledged and indubitable positions, that what has been longest known
+has been most considered, and what is most considered is best understood.
+
+The poet, of whose works I have undertaken the revision, may now begin to
+assume the dignity of an ancient, and claim the privilege of an
+established fame and prescriptive veneration. He has long outlived his
+century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit. Whatever
+advantages he might once derive from personal allusions, local customs, or
+temporary opinions, have for many years been lost; and every topick of
+merriment or motive of sorrow, which the modes of artificial life afforded
+him, now only obscure the scenes which they once illuminated. The effects
+of favour and competition are at an end; the tradition of his friendships
+and his enmities has perished; his works support no opinion with
+arguments, nor supply any faction with invectives; they can neither
+indulge vanity, nor gratify malignity; but are read without any other
+reason than the desire of pleasure, and are therefore praised only as
+pleasure is obtained; yet, thus unassisted by interest or passion, they
+have past through variations of taste and changes of manners, and, as they
+devolved from one generation to another, have received new honours at
+every transmission.
+
+But because human judgment, though it be gradually gaining upon certainty,
+never becomes infallible; and approbation, though long continued, may yet
+be only the approbation of prejudice or fashion; it is proper to inquire,
+by what peculiarities of excellence Shakespeare has gained and kept the
+favour of his countrymen.
+
+Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of
+general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and therefore few
+only can judge how nearly they are copied. The irregular combinations of
+fanciful invention may delight awhile, by that novelty of which the common
+satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder
+are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of
+truth.
+
+Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the
+poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of
+manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of
+particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by the
+peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but upon small
+numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions:
+they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will
+always supply, and observation will always find. His persons act and speak
+by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all
+minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion.
+In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in
+those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species.
+
+It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruction is
+derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakespeare with practical
+axioms and domestick wisdom. It was said of Euripides, that every verse
+was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may
+be collected a system of civil and oeconomical prudence. Yet his real power
+is not shewn in the splendor of particular passages, but by the progress
+of his fable, and the tenor of his dialogue; and he that tries to
+recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in
+Heirocles, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his
+pocket as a specimen.
+
+It will not easily be imagined how much Shakespeare excels in
+accommodating his sentiments to real life, but by comparing him with other
+authors. It was observed of the ancient schools of declamation, that the
+more diligently they were frequented, the more was the student
+disqualified for the world, because he found nothing there which he should
+ever meet in any other place. The same remark may be applied to every
+stage but that of Shakespeare. The theatre, when it is under any other
+direction, is peopled by such characters as were never seen, conversing in
+a language which was never heard, upon topicks which will never arise in
+the commerce of mankind. But the dialogue of this author is often so
+evidently determined by the incident which produces it, and is pursued
+with so much ease and simplicity, that it seems scarcely to claim the
+merit of fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent selection out of
+common conversation, and common occurrences.
+
+Upon every other stage the universal agent is love, by whose power all
+good and evil is distributed, and every action quickened or retarded. To
+bring a lover, a lady, and a rival into the fable; to entangle them in
+contradictory obligations, perplex them with oppositions of interest, and
+harrass them with violence of desires inconsistent with each other; to
+make them meet in rapture, and part in agony; to fill their mouths with
+hyperbolical joy and outrageous sorrow; to distress them as nothing human
+ever was distressed; to deliver them as nothing human ever was delivered,
+is the business of a modern dramatist. For this, probability is violated,
+life is misrepresented, and language is depraved. But love is only one of
+many passions, and as it has no great influence upon the sum of life, it
+has little operation in the dramas of a poet who caught his ideas from the
+living world, and exhibited only what he saw before him. He knew that any
+other passion, as it was regular or exorbitant, was a cause of happiness
+or calamity.
+
+Characters thus ample and general were not easily discriminated and
+preserved, yet perhaps no poet ever kept his personages more distinct from
+each other. I will not say with Pope, that every speech may be assigned to
+the proper speaker, because many speeches there are which have nothing
+characteristical; but, perhaps, though some may be equally adapted to
+every person, it will be difficult to find any that can be properly
+transferred from the present possessor to another claimant. The choice is
+right, when there is reason for choice.
+
+Other dramatists can only gain attention by hyperbolical or aggravated
+characters, by fabulous and unexampled excellence or depravity, as the
+writers of barbarous romances invigorated the reader by a giant and a
+dwarf; and he that should form his expectation of human affairs from the
+play, or from the tale, would be equally deceived. Shakespeare has no
+heroes; his scenes are occupied only by men, who act and speak as the
+reader thinks that he should himself have spoken or acted on the same
+occasion: even where the agency is super-natural, the dialogue is level
+with life. Other writers disguise the most natural passions and most
+frequent incidents; so that he who contemplates them in the book will not
+know them in the world: Shakespeare approximates the remote, and
+familiarizes the wonderful; the event which he represents will not happen,
+but if it were possible, its effects would probably be such as he has
+assigned; and it may be said that he has not only shewn human nature as it
+acts in real exigences, but as it would be found in trials to which it
+cannot be exposed.
+
+This therefore is the praise of Shakespeare, that his drama is the mirror
+of life; that he who has mazed his imagination, in following the phantoms
+which other writers raise up before him, may here be cured of his
+delirious ecstasies, by reading human sentiments in human language; by
+scenes from which a hermit may estimate the transactions of the world, and
+a confessor predict the progress of the passions.
+
+His adherence to general nature has exposed him to the censure of
+criticks, who form their judgments upon narrower principles. Dennis and
+Rhymer think his Romans not sufficiently Roman; and Voltaire censures his
+kings as not completely royal. Dennis is offended that Menenius, a senator
+of Rome, should play the buffoon; and Voltaire perhaps thinks decency
+violated when the Danish usurper is represented as a drunkard. But
+Shakespeare always makes nature predominate over accident; and if he
+preserves the essential character, is not very careful of distinctions
+superinduced and adventitious. His story requires Romans or kings, but he
+thinks only on men. He knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of
+all dispositions; and wanting a buffoon, he went into the senate-house for
+that which the senate-house would certainly have afforded him. He was
+inclined to shew an usurper and a murderer not only odious, but
+despicable; he therefore added drunkenness to his other qualities, knowing
+that kings love wine like other men, and that wine exerts its natural
+power upon kings. These are the petty cavils of petty minds; a poet
+overlooks the casual distinction of country and condition, as a painter,
+satisfied with the figure, neglects the drapery.
+
+The censure which he has incurred by mixing comick and tragick scenes, as
+it extends to all his works, deserves more consideration. Let the fact be
+first stated, and then examined.
+
+Shakespeare's plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense either
+tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the
+real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and
+sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes
+of combination; and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss
+of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveller is
+hasting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend; in which the
+malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolick of another; and many
+mischiefs and many benefits are done and hindered without design.
+
+Out of this chaos of mingled purposes and casualties, the ancient poets,
+according to the laws which custom had prescribed, selected some the
+crimes of men, and some their absurdities; some the momentous vicissitudes
+of life, and some the lighter occurrences; some the terrors of distress,
+and some the gaieties of prosperity. Thus rose the two modes of imitation,
+known by the names of _tragedy_ and _comedy_, compositions intended to
+promote different ends by contrary means, and considered as so little
+allied, that I do not recollect among the Greeks or Romans a single writer
+who attempted both.
+
+Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow not only
+in one mind, but in one composition. Almost all his plays are divided
+between serious and ludicrous characters, and, in the successive
+evolutions of the design, sometimes produce seriousness and sorrow, and
+sometimes levity and laughter.
+
+That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be readily
+allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature. The
+end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by
+pleasing. That the mingled drama may convey all the instruction of tragedy
+or comedy cannot be denied, because it includes both in its alternations
+of exhibition, and approaches nearer than either to the appearance of
+life, by shewing how great machinations and slender designs may promote or
+obviate one another, and the high and the low co-operate in the general
+system by unavoidable concatenation.
+
+It is objected that by this change of scenes the passions are interrupted
+in their progression, and that the principal event, being not advanced by
+a due gradation of preparatory incidents, wants at last the power to move,
+which constitutes the perfection of dramatick poetry. This reasoning is so
+specious, that it is received as true even by those who in daily
+experience feel it to be false. The interchanges of mingled scenes seldom
+fail to produce the intended vicissitudes of passion. Fiction cannot move
+so much, but that the attention may be easily transferred; and though it
+must be allowed that pleasing melancholy be sometimes interrupted by
+unwelcome levity, yet let it be considered likewise, that melancholy is
+often not pleasing, and that the disturbance of one man may be the relief
+of another; that different auditors have different habitudes; and that,
+upon the whole, all pleasure consists in variety.
+
+The players, who in their edition divided our author's works into
+comedies, histories, and tragedies, seem not to have distinguished the
+three kinds, by any very exact or definite ideas.
+
+An action which ended happily to the principal persons, however serious or
+distressful through its intermediate incidents, in their opinion
+constituted a comedy. This idea of a comedy continued long amongst us, and
+plays were written, which, by changing the catastrophe, were tragedies
+to-day, and comedies to-morrow.
+
+Tragedy was not in those times a poem of more general dignity or elevation
+than comedy; it required only a calamitous conclusion, with which the
+common criticism of that age was satisfied, whatever lighter pleasure it
+afforded in its progress.
+
+History was a series of actions, with no other than chronological
+succession, independent on each other, and without any tendency to
+introduce and regulate the conclusion. It is not always very nicely
+distinguished from tragedy. There is not much nearer approach to unity of
+action in the tragedy of _Antony and Cleopatra_, than in the history of
+_Richard the Second_. But a history might be continued through many plays;
+as it had no plan, it had no limits.
+
+Through all these denominations of the drama, Shakespeare's mode of
+composition is the same; an interchange of seriousness and merriment, by
+which the mind is softened at one time, and exhilarated at another. But
+whatever be his purpose, whether to gladden or depress, or to conduct the
+story, without vehemence or emotion, through tracts of easy and familiar
+dialogue, he never fails to attain his purpose; as he commands us, we
+laugh or mourn, or sit silent with quiet expectation, in tranquillity
+without indifference.
+
+When Shakespeare's plan is understood, most of the criticisms of Rhymer
+and Voltaire vanish away. The play of _Hamlet_ is opened, without
+impropriety, by two centinels; Iago bellows at Brabantio's window, without
+injury to the scheme of the play, though in terms which a modern audience
+would not easily endure; the character of Polonius is seasonable and
+useful, and the Grave-diggers themselves may be heard with applause.
+
+Shakespeare engaged in dramatick poetry with the world open before him;
+the rules of the ancients were yet known to few; the publick judgment was
+unformed; he had no example of such fame as might force him upon
+imitation, nor criticks of such authority as might restrain his
+extravagance: he therefore indulged his natural disposition, and his
+disposition, as Rhymer has remarked, led him to comedy. In tragedy he
+often writes with great appearance of toil and study, what is written at
+last with little felicity; but in his comick scenes, he seems to produce
+without labour, what no labour can improve. In tragedy he is always
+struggling after some occasion to be comick, but in comedy he seems to
+repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature.
+In his tragick scenes there is always something wanting, but his comedy
+often surpasses expectation or desire. His comedy pleases by the thoughts
+and the language, and his tragedy for the greater part by incident and
+action. His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct.
+
+The force of his comick scenes has suffered little diminution from the
+changes made by a century and a half, in manners or in words. As his
+personages act upon principles arising from genuine passion, very little
+modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations are
+communicable to all times and to all places; they are natural, and
+therefore durable; the adventitious peculiarities of personal habits are
+only superficial dies, bright and pleasing for a little while, yet soon
+fading to a dim tinct, without any remains of former lustre; but the
+discriminations of true passion are the colours of nature; they pervade
+the whole mass, and can only perish with the body that exhibits them. The
+accidental compositions of heterogeneous modes are dissolved by the chance
+which combined them; but the uniform simplicity of primitive qualities
+neither admits increase, nor suffers decay. The sand heaped by one flood
+is scattered by another, but the rock always continues in its place. The
+stream of time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabricks of
+other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare.
+
+If there be, what I believe there is, in every nation, a stile which never
+becomes obsolete, a certain mode of phraseology so consonant and congenial
+to the analogy and principles of its respective language, as to remain
+settled and unaltered; this stile is probably to be sought in the common
+intercourse of life, among those who speak only to be understood, without
+ambition of elegance. The polite are always catching modish innovations,
+and the learned depart from established forms of speech, in hope of
+finding or making better; those who wish for distinction forsake the
+vulgar, when the vulgar is right; but there is a conversation above
+grossness and below refinement, where propriety resides, and where this
+poet seems to have gathered his comick dialogue. He is therefore more
+agreeable to the ears of the present age than any other author equally
+remote, and among his other excellencies deserves to be studied as one of
+the original masters of our language.
+
+These observations are to be considered not as unexceptionably constant,
+but as containing general and predominant truth. Shakespeare's familiar
+dialogue is affirmed to be smooth and clear, yet not wholly without
+ruggedness or difficulty; as a country may be eminently fruitful, though
+it has spots unfit for cultivation: his characters are praised as natural,
+though their sentiments are sometimes forced, and their actions
+improbable; as the earth upon the whole is spherical, though its surface
+is varied with protuberances and cavities.
+
+Shakespeare with his excellencies has likewise faults, and faults
+sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit. I shall shew them in
+the proportion in which they appear to me, without envious malignity or
+superstitious veneration. No question can be more innocently discussed
+than a dead poet's pretensions to renown; and little regard is due to that
+bigotry which sets candour higher than truth.
+
+His first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil in books
+or in men. He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more
+careful to please than to instruct, that he seems to write without any
+moral purpose. From his writings indeed a system of social duty may be
+selected, for he that thinks reasonably must think morally; but his
+precepts and axioms drop casually from him; he makes no just distribution
+of good or evil, nor is always careful to shew in the virtuous a
+disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his persons indifferently through
+right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and
+leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of
+his age cannot extenuate; for it is always a writer's duty to make the
+world better, and justice is a virtue independent on time or place.
+
+The plots are often so loosely formed, that a very slight consideration
+may improve them, and so carelessly pursued, that he seems not always
+fully to comprehend his own design. He omits opportunities of instructing
+or delighting, which the train of his story seems to force upon him, and
+apparently rejects those exhibitions which would be more affecting, for
+the sake of those which are more easy.
+
+It may be observed that in many of his plays the latter part is evidently
+neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and in view of
+his reward, he shortened the labour to snatch the profit. He therefore
+remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his
+catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented.
+
+He had no regard to distinction of time or place, but gives to one age or
+nation, without scruple, the customs, institutions, and opinions of
+another, at the expence not only of likelihood, but of possibility. These
+faults Pope has endeavoured, with more zeal than judgment, to transfer to
+his imagined interpolators. We need not wonder to find Hector quoting
+Aristotle, when we see the loves of Theseus and Hippolyta combined with
+the Gothick mythology of fairies. Shakespeare, indeed, was not the only
+violator of chronology, for in the same age Sidney, who wanted not the
+advantages of learning, has, in his _Arcadia_, confounded the pastoral
+with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet, and security, with
+those of turbulence, violence, and adventure.
+
+In his comick scenes he is seldom very successful, when he engages his
+characters in reciprocations of smartness and contests of sarcasm; their
+jests are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious; neither his
+gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor are sufficiently
+distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners.
+Whether he represented the real conversation of his time is not easy to
+determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time
+of stateliness, formality, and reserve, yet perhaps the relaxations of
+that severity were not very elegant. There must, however, have been always
+some modes of gaiety preferable to others, and a writer ought to chuse the
+best.
+
+In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as his labour is
+more. The effusions of passion, which exigence forces out, are for the
+most part striking and energetick; but whenever he solicits his invention,
+or strains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is tumour, meanness,
+tediousness, and obscurity.
+
+In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction and a wearisome
+train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words,
+which might have been more plainly delivered in few. Narration in
+dramatick poetry is naturally tedious, as it is unanimated and inactive,
+and obstructs the progress of the action; it should therefore always be
+rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakespeare found it an
+encumbrance, and instead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to
+recommend it by dignity and splendor.
+
+His declamations or set speeches are commonly cold and weak, for his power
+was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other tragick writers,
+to catch opportunities of amplification, and instead of inquiring what the
+occasion demanded, to shew how much his stores of knowledge could supply,
+he seldom escapes without the pity or resentment of his reader.
+
+It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an unwieldy
+sentiment, which he cannot well express, and will not reject; he struggles
+with it a while, and if it continues stubborn, comprises it in words such
+as occur, and leaves it to be disentangled and evolved by those who have
+more leisure to bestow upon it.
+
+Not that always where the language is intricate the thought is subtle, or
+the image always great where the line is bulky; the equality of words to
+things is very often neglected, and trivial sentiments and vulgar ideas
+disappoint the attention, to which they are recommended by sonorous
+epithets and swelling figures.
+
+But the admirers of this great poet have most reason to complain when he
+approaches nearest to his highest excellence, and seems fully resolved to
+sink them in dejection, and mollify them with tender emotions by the fall
+of greatness, the danger of innocence, or the crosses of love. What he
+does best, he soon ceases to do. He is not long soft and pathetick without
+some idle conceit, or contemptible equivocation. He no sooner begins to
+move, than he counteracts himself; and terror and pity, as they are rising
+in the mind, are checked and blasted by sudden frigidity.
+
+A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller: he
+follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way, and
+sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind,
+and its fascinations are irresistible. Whatever be the dignity or
+profundity of his disquisition, whether he be enlarging knowledge or
+exalting affection, whether he be amusing attention with incidents, or
+enchaining it in suspense, let but a quibble spring up before him, and he
+leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he
+will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A
+quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight, that he was
+content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. A
+quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and
+was content to lose it.
+
+It will be thought strange, that, in enumerating the defects of this
+writer, I have not yet mentioned his neglect of the unities; his violation
+of those laws which have been instituted and established by the joint
+authority of poets and of criticks.
+
+For his other deviations from the art of writing, I resign him to critical
+justice, without making any other demand in his favour, than that which
+must be indulged to all human excellence; that his virtues be rated with
+his failings: but, from the censure which this irregularity may bring upon
+him, I shall, with due reverence to that learning which I must oppose,
+adventure to try how I can defend him.
+
+His histories, being neither tragedies nor comedies, are not subject to
+any of their laws; nothing more is necessary to all the praise which they
+expect, than that the changes of action be so prepared as to be
+understood, that the incidents be various and affecting, and the
+characters consistent, natural, and distinct. No other unity is intended,
+and therefore none is to be sought.
+
+In his other works he has well enough preserved the unity of action. He
+has not, indeed, an intrigue regularly perplexed and regularly unravelled;
+he does not endeavour to hide his design only to discover it, for this is
+seldom the order of real events, and Shakespeare is the poet of nature:
+but his plan has commonly what Aristotle requires, a beginning, a middle,
+and an end; one event is concatenated with another, and the conclusion
+follows by easy consequence. There are perhaps some incidents that might
+be spared, as in other poets there is much talk that only fills up time
+upon the stage; but the general system makes gradual advances, and the end
+of the play is the end of expectation.
+
+To the unities of time and place he has shewn no regard; and perhaps a
+nearer view of the principles on which they stand will diminish their
+value, and withdraw from them the veneration which, from the time of
+Corneille, they have very generally received, by discovering that they
+have given more trouble to the poet, than pleasure to the auditor.
+
+The necessity of observing the unities of time and place arises from the
+supposed necessity of making the drama credible. The criticks hold it
+impossible that an action of months or years can be possibly believed to
+pass in three hours; or that the spectator can suppose himself to sit in
+the theatre, while ambassadors go and return between distant kings, while
+armies are levied and towns besieged, while an exile wanders and returns,
+or till he whom they saw courting his mistress, shall lament the untimely
+fall of his son. The mind revolts from evident falsehood, and fiction
+loses its force when it departs from the resemblance of reality.
+
+From the narrow limitation of time necessarily arises the contraction of
+place. The spectator, who knows that he saw the first act at Alexandria,
+cannot suppose that he sees the next at Rome, at a distance to which not
+the dragons of Medea could, in so short a time, have transported him; he
+knows with certainty that he has not changed his place; and he knows that
+place cannot change itself; that what was a house cannot become a plain;
+that what was Thebes can never be Persepolis.
+
+Such is the triumphant language with which a critick exults over the
+misery of an irregular poet, and exults commonly without resistance or
+reply. It is time therefore to tell him, by the authority of Shakespeare,
+that he assumes, as an unquestionable principle, a position, which, while
+his breath is forming it into words, his understanding pronounces to be
+false. It is false that any representation is mistaken for reality; that
+any dramatick fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single
+moment, was ever credited.
+
+The objection arising from the impossibility of passing the first hour at
+Alexandria, and the next at Rome, supposes that when the play opens the
+spectator really imagines himself at Alexandria, and believes that his
+walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and that he lives in the
+days of Antony and Cleopatra. Surely he that imagines this may imagine
+more. He that can take the stage at one time for the palace of the
+Ptolemies, may take it in half an hour for the promontory of Actium.
+Delusion, if delusion be admitted, has no certain limitation; if the
+spectator can be once persuaded that his old acquaintance are Alexander
+and Cæsar, that a room illuminated with candles is the plain of Pharsalia,
+or the bank of Granicus, he is in a state of elevation above the reach of
+reason, or of truth, and from the heights of empyrean poetry may despise
+the circumscriptions of terrestrial nature. There is no reason why a mind
+thus wandering in ecstasy should count the clock, or why an hour should
+not be a century in that calenture of the brains that can make the stage a
+field.
+
+The truth is that the spectators are always in their senses, and know,
+from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that
+the players are only players. They come to hear a certain number of lines
+recited with just gesture and elegant modulation. The lines relate to some
+action, and an action must be in some place; but the different actions
+that complete a story may be in places very remote from each other; and
+where is the absurdity of allowing that space to represent first Athens,
+and then Sicily, which was always known to be neither Sicily nor Athens,
+but a modern theatre.
+
+By supposition, as place is introduced, time may be extended; the time
+required by the fable elapses for the most part between the acts; for, of
+so much of the action as is represented, the real and poetical duration is
+the same. If, in the first act, preparations for war against Mithridates
+are represented to be made in Rome, the event of the war may, without
+absurdity, be represented, in the catastrophe, as happening in Pontus; we
+know that there is neither war, nor preparation for war; we know that we
+are neither in Rome nor Pontus; that neither Mithridates nor Lucullus are
+before us. The drama exhibits successive imitations of successive actions,
+and why may not the second imitation represent an action that happened
+years after the first; if it be so connected with it, that nothing but
+time can be supposed to intervene. Time is, of all modes of existence,
+most obsequious to the imagination; a lapse of years is as easily
+conceived as a passage of hours. In contemplation we easily contract the
+time of real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted
+when we only see their imitation.
+
+It will be asked how the drama moves, if it is not credited. It is
+credited with all the credit due to a drama. It is credited, whenever it
+moves, as a just picture of a real original; as representing to the
+auditor what he would himself feel, if he were to do or suffer what is
+there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The reflection that strikes
+the heart is not that the evils before us are real evils, but that they
+are evils to which we ourselves may be exposed. If there be any fallacy,
+it is not that we fancy the players, but that we fancy ourselves unhappy
+for a moment; but we rather lament the possibility than suppose the
+presence of misery, as a mother weeps over her babe, when she remembers
+that death may take it from her. The delight of tragedy proceeds from our
+consciousness of fiction; if we thought murders and treasons real, they
+would please no more.
+
+Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for
+realities, but because they bring realities to mind. When the imagination
+is recreated by a painted landscape, the trees are not supposed capable to
+give us shade, or the fountains coolness; but we consider how we should be
+pleased with such fountains playing beside us, and such woods waving over
+us. We are agitated in reading the history of _Henry the Fifth_, yet no
+man takes his book for the field of Agincourt. A dramatick exhibition is a
+book recited with concomitants that increase or diminish its effect.
+Familiar comedy is often more powerful in the theatre, than on the page;
+imperial tragedy is always less. The humour of Petruchio may be heightened
+by grimace; but what voice or what gesture can hope to add dignity or
+force to the soliloquy of Cato?
+
+A play read affects the mind like a play acted. It is therefore evident
+that the action is not supposed to be real; and it follows that between
+the acts a longer or shorter time may be allowed to pass, and that no more
+account of space or duration is to be taken by the auditor of a drama,
+than by the reader of a narrative, before whom may pass in an hour the
+life of a hero, or the revolutions of an empire.
+
+Whether Shakespeare knew the unities, and rejected them by design, or
+deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impossible to
+decide, and useless to enquire. We may reasonably suppose that, when he
+rose to notice, he did not want the counsels and admonitions of scholars
+and criticks, and that he at last deliberately persisted in a practice,
+which he might have begun by chance. As nothing is essential to the fable
+but unity of action, and as the unities of time and place arise evidently
+from false assumptions, and, by circumscribing the extent of the drama,
+lessen its variety, I cannot think it much to be lamented that they were
+not known by him, or not observed: nor, if such another poet could arise,
+should I very vehemently reproach him, that his first act passed at
+Venice, and his next in Cyprus. Such violations of rules merely positive
+become the comprehensive genius of Shakespeare, and such censures are
+suitable to the minute and slender criticism of Voltaire:
+
+
+    Non usque adeo permiscuit imis
+    Longus summa dies, ut non, si voce Metelli
+    Serventur leges, malint a Cæsare tolli.
+
+
+Yet when I speak thus slightly of dramatick rules, I cannot but recollect
+how much wit and learning may be produced against me; before such
+authorities I am afraid to stand, not that I think the present question
+one of those that are to be decided by mere authority, but because it is
+to be suspected that these precepts have not been so easily received but
+for better reasons than I have yet been able to find. The result of my
+enquiries, in which it would be ludicrous to boast of impartiality, is
+that the unities of time and place are not essential to a just drama, that
+though they may sometimes conduce to pleasure, they are always to be
+sacrificed to the nobler beauties of variety and instruction; and that a
+play, written with nice observation of critical rules, is to be
+contemplated as an elaborate curiosity, as the product of superfluous and
+ostentatious art, by which is shewn, rather what is possible, than what is
+necessary.
+
+He that, without diminution of any other excellence, shall preserve all
+the unities unbroken, deserves the like applause with the architect who
+shall display all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without any
+deduction from its strength; but the principal beauty of a citadel is to
+exclude the enemy; and the greatest graces of a play are to copy nature,
+and instruct life.
+
+Perhaps what I have here not dogmatically but deliberately written, may
+recall the principles of the drama to a new examination. I am almost
+frighted at my own temerity; and when I estimate the fame and the strength
+of those that maintain the contrary opinion, am ready to sink down in
+reverential silence; as Æneas withdrew from the defence of Troy, when he
+saw Neptune shaking the wall, and Juno heading the besiegers.
+
+Those whom my arguments cannot persuade to give their approbation to the
+judgment of Shakespeare, will easily, if they consider the condition of
+his life, make some allowance for his ignorance.
+
+Every man's performances, to be rightly estimated, must be compared with
+the state of the age in which he lived, and with his own particular
+opportunities; and though to a reader a book be not worse or better for
+the circumstances of the author, yet as there is always a silent reference
+of human works to human abilities, and as the enquiry, how far man may
+extend his designs, or how high he may rate his native force, is of far
+greater dignity than in what rank we shall place any particular
+performance, curiosity is always busy to discover the instruments, as well
+as to survey the workmanship, to know how much is to be ascribed to
+original powers, and how much to casual and adventitious help. The palaces
+of Peru or Mexico were certainly mean and incommodious habitations, if
+compared to the houses of European monarchs; yet who could forbear to view
+them with astonishment, who remembered that they were built without the
+use of iron?
+
+The English nation, in the time of Shakespeare, was yet struggling to
+emerge from barbarity. The philology of Italy had been transplanted hither
+in the reign of Henry the Eighth; and the learned languages had been
+successfully cultivated by Lilly, Linacre, and More; by Pole, Cheke, and
+Gardiner; and afterwards by Smith, Clerk, Haddon, and Ascham. Greek was
+now taught to boys in the principal schools; and those who united elegance
+with learning, read, with great diligence, the Italian and Spanish poets.
+But literature was yet confined to professed scholars, or to men and women
+of high rank. The publick was gross and dark; and to be able to read and
+write, was an accomplishment still valued for its rarity.
+
+Nations, like individuals, have their infancy. A people newly awakened to
+literary curiosity, being yet unacquainted with the true state of things,
+knows not how to judge of that which is proposed as its resemblance.
+Whatever is remote from common appearances is always welcome to vulgar, as
+to childish credulity; and of a country unenlightened by learning, the
+whole people is the vulgar. The study of those who then aspired to
+plebeian learning was then laid out upon adventures, giants, dragons, and
+enchantments. _The Death of Arthur_ was the favourite volume.
+
+The mind which has feasted on the luxurious wonders of fiction, has no
+taste of the insipidity of truth. A play which imitated only the common
+occurrences of the world, would, upon the admirers of _Palmerin_ and _Guy
+of Warwick_, have made little impression; he that wrote for such an
+audience was under the necessity of looking round for strange events and
+fabulous transactions, and that incredibility, by which maturer knowledge
+is offended, was the chief recommendation of writings, to unskilful
+curiosity.
+
+Our author's plots are generally borrowed from novels; and it is
+reasonable to suppose that he chose the most popular, such as were read by
+many, and related by more; for his audience could not have followed him
+through the intricacies of the drama, had they not held the thread of the
+story in their hands.
+
+The stories which we now find only in remoter authors, were in his time
+accessible and familiar. The fable of _As you like it_, which is supposed
+to be copied from Chaucer's _Gamelyn_, was a little pamphlet of those
+times; and old Mr. Cibber remembered the tale of _Hamlet_ in plain English
+prose, which the criticks have now to seek in _Saxo Grammaticus_.
+
+His English histories he took from English chronicles and English ballads;
+and as the ancient writers were made known to his countrymen by versions,
+they supplied him with new subjects; he dilated some of Plutarch's lives
+into plays, when they had been translated by North.
+
+His plots, whether historical or fabulous, are always crouded with
+incidents, by which the attention of a rude people was more easily caught
+than by sentiment or argumentation; and such is the power of the
+marvellous, even over those who despise it, that every man finds his mind
+more strongly seized by the tragedies of Shakespeare than of any other
+writer; others please us by particular speeches, but he always makes us
+anxious for the event, and has perhaps excelled all but Homer in securing
+the first purpose of a writer, by exciting restless and unquenchable
+curiosity, and compelling him that reads his work to read it through.
+
+The shows and bustle with which his plays abound have the same original.
+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.
+
+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, 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 _Menæchmi_ of
+Plautus; 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 in high 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; 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 ought 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 shewed 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 analyse 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 enquiries, 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
+enquiry; 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 incumbrances of his fortune were shaken from his mind, _as dew-drops
+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 shew 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,
+shews 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 trissyllable 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._
+
+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_, 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 loath 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
+shew 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, their negligence and
+unskilfulness has by the late revisers been sufficiently shewn. 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 stile 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 errors;
+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.
+
+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 errors,
+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 Rowe, 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, shewed 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 splendor 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 errors. 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. 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 Rowe I have sometimes suppressed, and his contemptible ostentation I
+have frequently concealed; but I have in some places shewn him as he would
+have shewn 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 dispatches 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 shew. 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 licence 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 enquiry 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 error 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 enquiry, 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 shew 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 error, and sometimes
+contrarieties of error, 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 a while 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 errors 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. They have
+both shewn 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, 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 nor 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 commentator, 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
+shewn 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 these 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 I 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
+unauthorized, 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 encreases
+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 shewing, 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.
+
+
+    Criticks I saw, that other's 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 error 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 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, when 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 shews 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 clenches, 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, 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 inferior 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+RICHARD FARMER: AN ESSAY ON THE LEARNING OF SHAKESPEARE: ADDRESSED TO
+JOSEPH CRADOCK, ESQ. 1767.
+
+
+
+
+Preface to the Second Edition, 1767.
+
+
+THE AUTHOR of the following ESSAY was solicitous only for the honour of
+Shakespeare: he hath however, in _his own_ capacity, little reason to
+complain of _occasional_ Criticks, or Criticks _by profession_. The very
+_Few_, who have been pleased to controvert any part of his Doctrine, have
+favoured him with better manners than arguments; and claim his thanks for
+a further opportunity of demonstrating the futility of _Theoretick_
+reasoning against _Matter of Fact_. It is indeed strange that any _real_
+Friends of our immortal POET should be still willing to force him into a
+situation which is not tenable: treat him as a _learned_ Man, and what
+shall excuse the most gross violations of History, Chronology, and
+Geography?
+
+{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH YPOGEGRAMMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} is the Motto of every _Polemick_: like his
+Brethren at the _Amphitheatre_, he holds it a merit to _die hard_; and
+will not say, _Enough_, though the Battle be decided. "Were it shewn,"
+says some one, "that the old Bard borrowed _all_ his allusions from
+_English_ books then published, our _Essayist_ might have possibly
+established his System."--In good time!--This had scarcely been attempted by
+Peter Burman himself, with the Library of Shakespeare before him.--"Truly,"
+as Mr. Dogberry says, "for _mine own_ part, if I were as tedious as a
+King, I could find in my heart to bestow it all on this Subject": but
+where should I meet with a Reader?--When the main Pillars are taken away,
+the whole Building falls in course: Nothing hath been, or can be, pointed
+out, which is not easily removed; or rather, which was not _virtually_
+removed before: a very little _Analogy_ will do the business. I shall
+therefore have no occasion to trouble myself any further; and may venture
+to call my Pamphlet, in the words of a pleasant Declaimer against _Sermons
+on the thirtieth of January_, "an Answer to every thing that shall
+hereafter be written on the Subject."
+
+But "this method of reasoning will prove any one ignorant of the
+Languages, who hath written when Translations were extant."--Shade of
+Burgersdicius!--does it follow, because Shakespeare's early life was
+incompatible with a course of Education--whose Contemporaries, Friends and
+Foes, nay, and himself likewise, agree in his want of what is usually
+called _Literature_--whose mistakes from equivocal Translations, and even
+typographical Errors, cannot possibly be accounted for otherwise,--that
+Locke, to whom not one of these circumstances is applicable, understood no
+Greek?--I suspect, Rollin's Opinion of our Philosopher was not founded on
+this argument.
+
+Shakespeare wanted not the Stilts of Languages to raise him above all
+other men. The quotation from Lilly in the _Taming of the Shrew_, if
+indeed it be his, strongly proves the extent of his reading: had he known
+Terence, he would not have quoted erroneously from his _Grammar_. Every
+one hath met with men in common life, who, according to the language of
+the _Water-poet_, "got only from _Possum_ to _Posset_," and yet will throw
+out a line occasionally from their _Accidence_ or their _Cato de Moribus_
+with tolerable propriety.--If, however, the old Editions be trusted in this
+passage, our Author's memory somewhat failed him in point of _Concord_.
+
+The rage of _Parallelisms_ is almost over, and in truth nothing can be
+more absurd. "THIS was stolen from _one_ Classick,--THAT from
+_another_";--and had I not stept in to his rescue, poor Shakespeare had
+been stript as naked of ornament, as when he first _held Horses_ at the
+door of the Playhouse.
+
+The late ingenious and modest Mr. Dodsley declared himself
+
+
+    Untutor'd in the lore of Greece or Rome:
+
+
+Yet let us take a passage at a venture from any of his performances, and a
+thousand to one, it is stolen. Suppose it be his celebrated Compliment to
+the _Ladies_, in one of his earliest pieces, _The Toy-shop_: "A good Wife
+makes the cares of the World sit easy, and adds a sweetness to its
+pleasures; she is a Man's best Companion in Prosperity, and his only
+Friend in Adversity; the carefullest preserver of his Health, and the
+kindest Attendant in his Sickness; a faithful Adviser in Distress, a
+Comforter in Affliction, and a prudent Manager in all his domestic
+Affairs."--_Plainly_, from a fragment of Euripides preserved by Stobæus.
+
+
+    {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}
+    {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~},
+    {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
+    {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PSI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK KORONIS~}!--_Par._ 4to. 1623.
+
+
+Malvolio in the _Twelfth-Night_ of Shakespeare hath some expressions very
+similar to Alnaschar in the _Arabian Tales_: which perhaps may be
+sufficient for _some_ Criticks to prove his acquaintance with Arabic!
+
+It seems however, at last, that "_Taste_ should determine the matter."
+This, as Bardolph expresses it, is a _word of exceeding good command_: but
+I am willing that the Standard itself be somewhat better ascertained
+before it be opposed to demonstrative Evidence.--Upon the whole, I may
+consider myself as the _Pioneer_ of the _Commentators_:
+
+I have removed a deal of _learned Rubbish_, and pointed out to them
+Shakespeare's track in the ever-pleasing _Paths of Nature_. This was
+necessarily a previous Inquiry; and I hope I may assume with some
+confidence, what one of the first Criticks of the Age was pleased to
+declare on reading the former Edition, that "The Question is _now_ for
+ever decided."
+
+
+
+
+An Essay On The Learning Of Shakespeare: Addressed To Joseph Cradock, Esq.
+
+
+"Shakespeare," says a Brother of the _Craft_, "is a vast garden of
+criticism": and certainly no one can be favoured with more weeders
+_gratis_.
+
+But how often, my dear Sir, are weeds and flowers torn up
+indiscriminately?--the ravaged spot is re-planted in a moment, and a
+profusion of critical thorns thrown over it for security.
+
+"A prudent man, therefore, would not venture his fingers amongst them."
+
+Be, however, in little pain for your friend, who regards himself
+sufficiently to be cautious:--yet he asserts with confidence, that no
+improvement can be expected, whilst the natural soil is mistaken for a
+hot-bed, and the Natives of the banks of _Avon_ are scientifically choked
+with the culture of exoticks.
+
+Thus much for metaphor; it is contrary to the _Statute_ to fly out so
+early: but who can tell, whether it may not be demonstrated by some
+critick or other, that a deviation from rule is peculiarly happy in an
+Essay on Shakespeare!
+
+You have long known my opinion concerning the literary acquisitions of our
+immortal Dramatist; and remember how I congratulated myself on my
+coincidence with the last and best of his Editors. I told you, however,
+that his _small Latin and less Greek_ would still be litigated, and you
+see very assuredly that I was not mistaken. The trumpet hath been sounded
+against "the darling project of representing Shakespeare as one of the
+illiterate vulgar"; and indeed to so good purpose, that I would by all
+means recommend the performer to the army of the _braying Faction_,
+recorded by Cervantes. The testimony of his contemporaries is again
+disputed; constant tradition is opposed by flimsy arguments; and nothing
+is heard but confusion and nonsense. One could scarcely imagine this a
+topick very likely to inflame the passions: it is asserted by Dryden, that
+"those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greatest
+commendation"; yet an attack upon an article of faith hath been usually
+received with more temper and complacence, than the unfortunate opinion
+which I am about to defend.
+
+But let us previously lament, with every lover of Shakespeare, that the
+Question was not fully discussed by Mr. Johnson himself: what he sees
+intuitively, others must arrive at by a series of proofs; and I have not
+time to _teach_ with precision: be contented therefore with a few cursory
+observations, as they may happen to arise from the Chaos of Papers you
+have so often laughed at, "a stock sufficient to set up an _Editor in
+form_." I am convinced of the strength of my cause, and superior to any
+little advantage from sophistical arrangements.
+
+General positions without proofs will probably have no great weight on
+either side, yet it may not seem fair to suppress them: take them
+therefore as their authors occur to me, and we will afterward proceed to
+particulars.
+
+The testimony of Ben stands foremost; and some have held it sufficient to
+decide the controversy: in the warmest Panegyrick that ever was written,
+he apologizes for what _he_ supposed the only defect in his "beloved
+friend,--
+
+
+                            ----Soul of the age!
+    Th' applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!--
+
+
+whose memory he honoured almost to idolatry": and conscious of the worth
+of ancient literature, like any other man on the same occasion, he rather
+carries his acquirements _above_ than _below_ the truth. "Jealousy!" cries
+Mr. Upton; "People will allow others any qualities, but those upon which
+they highly value _themselves_." Yes, where there _is_ a competition, and
+the competitor formidable: but, I think, this Critick himself hath
+scarcely set in opposition the learning of Shakespeare and Jonson. When a
+superiority is universally granted, it by no means appears a man's
+literary interest to depress the reputation of his Antagonist.
+
+In truth the received opinion of the pride and malignity of Jonson, at
+least in the earlier part of life, is absolutely groundless: at this time
+scarce a play or a poem appeared without Ben's encomium, from the original
+Shakespeare to the translator of Du Bartas.
+
+But Jonson is by no means our only authority. Drayton, the countryman and
+acquaintance of Shakespeare, determines his excellence to the _naturall
+Braine_ only. Digges, a wit of the town before our Poet left the stage, is
+very strong to the purpose,
+
+
+    ----Nature only helpt him, for looke thorow
+    This whole book, thou shalt find he doth not borow
+    One phrase from Greekes, nor Latines imitate,
+    Nor once from vulgar languages translate.
+
+
+Suckling opposes his _easier strain_ to the _sweat of learned Jonson_.
+Denham assures us that all he had was from _old Mother-wit_. _His native
+wood-notes wild_, every one remembers to be celebrated by Milton. Dryden
+observes prettily enough, that "he wanted not the spectacles of books to
+read Nature." He came out of her hand, as some one else expresses it, like
+Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth and mature.
+
+The ever memorable Hales of Eton (who, notwithstanding his Epithet, is, I
+fear, almost forgotten) had too great a knowledge both of Shakespeare and
+the Ancients to allow much acquaintance between them: and urged very
+justly on the part of Genius in opposition to Pedantry, That "if he had
+not _read_ the Classicks, he had likewise not _stolen_ from them; and if
+any Topick was produced from a Poet of antiquity, he would undertake to
+shew somewhat on the same subject, at least as well written by
+Shakespeare."
+
+Fuller, a diligent and equal searcher after truth and quibbles, declares
+positively that "his learning was very little,--_Nature_ was all the _Art_
+used upon him, as _he himself_, if alive, would confess." And may we not
+say he did confess it, when he apologized for his _untutored lines_ to his
+noble patron the Earl of Southampton?--this list of witnesses might be
+easily enlarged; but I flatter myself, I shall stand in no need of such
+evidence.
+
+One of the first and most vehement assertors of the learning of
+Shakespeare was the Editor of his Poems, the well-known Mr. Gildon; and
+his steps were most punctually taken by a subsequent labourer in the same
+department, Dr. Sewel.
+
+Mr. Pope supposed "little ground for the common opinion of his want of
+learning": once indeed he made a proper distinction between _learning_ and
+_languages_, as I would be understood to do in my Title-page; but
+unfortunately he forgot it in the course of his disquisition, and
+endeavoured to persuade himself that Shakespeare's acquaintance with the
+Ancients might be actually proved by the same medium as Jonson's.
+
+Mr. Theobald is "very unwilling to allow him so poor a scholar as many
+have laboured to represent him"; and yet is "cautious of declaring too
+positively on the other side of the question."
+
+Dr. Warburton hath exposed the weakness of some arguments from _suspected_
+imitations; and yet offers others, which, I doubt not, he could as easily
+have refuted.
+
+Mr. Upton wonders "with what kind of reasoning any one could be so far
+imposed upon, as to imagine that Shakespeare had no learning"; and lashes
+with much zeal and satisfaction "the pride and pertness of dunces, who,
+under such a name, would gladly shelter their own idleness and ignorance."
+
+He, like the learned Knight, at every anomaly in grammar or metre,
+
+
+    Hath hard words ready to shew why,
+    And tell what _Rule_ he did it by.
+
+
+How would the old Bard have been astonished to have found that he had very
+skilfully given the _trochaic dimeter brachycatalectic_, COMMONLY called
+the _ithyphallic_ measure, to the Witches in _Macbeth_! and that now and
+then a halting Verse afforded a most beautiful instance of the _Pes
+proceleusmaticus_!
+
+"But," continues Mr. Upton, "it was a learned age; Roger Ascham assures us
+that Queen Elizabeth read more Greek every day, than some _Dignitaries_ of
+the Church did Latin in a whole week." This appears very probable; and a
+pleasant proof it is of the general learning of the times, and of
+Shakespeare in particular. I wonder he did not corroborate it with an
+extract from her injunctions to her Clergy, that "such as were but _mean
+Readers_ should peruse over before, once or twice, the Chapters and
+Homilies, to the intent they might read to the better understanding of the
+people."
+
+Dr. Grey declares that Shakespeare's knowledge in the Greek and Latin
+tongues cannot _reasonably_ be called in question. Dr. Dodd supposes it
+_proved_, that he was not such a novice in learning and antiquity as _some
+people_ would pretend. And to close the whole, for I suspect you to be
+tired of quotation, Mr. Whalley, the ingenious Editor of Jonson, hath
+written a piece expressly on this side the question: perhaps from a very
+excusable partiality, he was willing to draw Shakespeare from the field of
+Nature to classick ground, where alone, he knew, his Author could possibly
+cope with him.
+
+These criticks, and many others their coadjutors, have supposed themselves
+able to trace Shakespeare in the writings of the Ancients; and have
+sometimes persuaded us of their own learning, whatever became of their
+Author's. Plagiarisms have been discovered in every natural description
+and every moral sentiment. Indeed by the kind assistance of the various
+_Excerpta_, _Sententiæ_, and _Flores_, this business may be effected with
+very little expense of time or sagacity; as Addison hath demonstrated in
+his Comment on _Chevy-chase_, and Wagstaff on _Tom Thumb_; and I myself
+will engage to give you quotations from the elder _English_ writers (for,
+to own the truth, I was once idle enough to collect such) which shall
+carry with them at least an equal degree of similarity. But there can be
+no occasion of wasting any future time in this department: the world is
+now in possession of the _Marks of Imitation_.
+
+"Shakespeare, however, hath frequent allusions to the _facts_ and _fables_
+of antiquity." Granted:--and, as Mat. Prior says, to save the effusion of
+more Christian ink, I will endeavour to shew how they came to his
+acquaintance.
+
+It is notorious that much of his _matter of fact_ knowledge is deduced
+from Plutarch: but in what language he read him, hath yet been the
+question. Mr. Upton is pretty confident of his skill in the Original, and
+corrects accordingly the _Errors of his Copyists_ by the Greek standard.
+Take a few instances, which will elucidate this matter sufficiently.
+
+In the third act of _Anthony and Cleopatra_, Octavius represents to his
+Courtiers the imperial pomp of those illustrious lovers, and the
+arrangement of their dominion,
+
+
+         ----Unto her
+    He gave the 'stablishment of Egypt, made her
+    Of lower Syria, Cyprus, _Lydia_,
+    Absolute Queen.
+
+
+Read _Libya_, says the critick _authoritatively_, as is plain from
+Plutarch, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~}
+{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}.
+
+This is very true: Mr. Heath accedes to the correction, and Mr. Johnson
+admits it into the Text: but turn to the translation, from the French of
+Amyot, by Thomas North, in _Folio_, 1579; and you will at once see the
+origin of the mistake.
+
+"First of all he did establish Cleopatra Queene of Ægypt, of Cyprus, of
+_Lydia_, and the lower Syria."
+
+Again in the Fourth Act,
+
+
+    ----My messenger
+    He hath whipt with rods, dares me to personal combat,
+    Cæsar to Anthony. Let th' old Ruffian know
+    I have many other ways to die; mean time
+    Laugh at his challenge.----
+
+
+"What a reply is this?" cries Mr. Upton, "'tis acknowledging he should
+fall under the unequal combat. But if we read,
+
+
+    ----Let the old Ruffian know
+    _He_ hath many other ways to die; mean time
+    _I_ laugh at his challenge----
+
+
+we have the poignancy and the very repartee of Cæsar in Plutarch."
+
+This correction was first made by Sir Thomas Hanmer, and Mr. Johnson hath
+received it. Most indisputably it is the sense of Plutarch, and given so
+in the modern translations: but Shakespeare was misled by the ambiguity of
+the old one, "Antonius sent again to challenge Cæsar to fight him: Cæsar
+answered, That _he_ had many other ways to die than so."
+
+In the Third Act of _Julius Cæsar_, Anthony in his well-known harangue to
+the people, repeats a part of the Emperor's will,
+
+
+    ----To every Roman citizen he gives,
+    To every sev'ral man, seventy-five drachmas----
+    Moreover he hath left you all his walks,
+    His private arbours, and new-planted orchards,
+    On _this_ side Tyber.----
+
+
+"Our Author certainly wrote," says Mr. Theobald, "On _that_ side Tyber--
+
+
+    _Trans_ Tiberim--prope Cæsaris hortos.
+
+
+And Plutarch, whom Shakespeare very diligently _studied_, expressly
+declares that he left the publick his gardens and walks, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}
+{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}, _beyond_ the _Tyber_."
+
+This emendation likewise hath been adopted by the subsequent Editors; but
+hear again the old Translation, where Shakespeare's _study_ lay: "He
+bequeathed unto every citizen of Rome seventy-five drachmas a man, and he
+left his gardens and arbours unto the people, which he had on _this_ side
+of the river of Tyber." I could furnish you with many more instances, but
+these are as good as a thousand.
+
+Hence had our author his characteristick knowledge of Brutus and Anthony,
+upon which much argumentation for his learning hath been founded: and
+hence _literatim_ the Epitaph on Timon, which, it was once presumed, he
+had corrected from the blunders of the Latin version, by his own superior
+knowledge of the Original.
+
+I cannot, however, omit a passage of Mr. Pope. "The _speeches_ copy'd from
+Plutarch in _Coriolanus_ may, I think, be as well made an instance of the
+learning of Shakespeare, as those copy'd from Cicero in _Catiline_, of
+Ben. Jonson's." Let us inquire into this matter, and transcribe a _speech_
+for a specimen. Take the famous one of Volumnia:
+
+
+    Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
+    And state of bodies would bewray what life
+    We've led since thy Exile. Think with thyself,
+    How more unfortunate than all living women
+    Are we come hither; since thy sight, which should
+    Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
+    Constrains them weep, and shake with fear and sorrow;
+    Making the mother, wife, and child to see
+    The son, the husband, and the father tearing
+    His Country's bowels out: and to poor we
+    Thy enmity's most capital; thou barr'st us
+    Our prayers to the Gods, which is a comfort
+    That all but we enjoy. For how can we,
+    Alas! how can we, for our Country pray,
+    Whereto we're bound, together with thy Victory,
+    Whereto we're bound? Alack! or we must lose
+    The Country, our dear nurse; or else thy Person,
+    Our comfort in the Country. We must find
+    An eminent calamity, though we had
+    Our wish, which side shou'd win. For either thou
+    Must, as a foreign Recreant, be led
+    With manacles thorough our streets; or else
+    Triumphantly tread on thy Country's ruin,
+    And bear the palm, for having bravely shed
+    Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,
+    I purpose not to wait on Fortune, 'till
+    These wars determine: if I can't persuade thee
+    Rather to shew a noble grace to both parts,
+    Than seek the end of one; thou shalt no sooner
+    March to assault thy Country, than to tread
+    (Trust to't, thou shalt not) on thy mother's womb,
+    That brought thee to this world.
+
+
+I will now give you the old Translation, which shall effectually confute
+Mr. Pope: for our Author hath done little more than throw the very words
+of North into blank verse.
+
+"If we helde our peace (my sonne) and determined not to speake, the state
+of our poore bodies, and present sight of our rayment, would easely bewray
+to thee what life we haue led at home, since thy exile and abode abroad.
+But thinke now with thy selfe, howe much more unfortunately then all the
+women liuinge we are come hether, considering that the sight which should
+be most pleasaunt to all other to beholde, spitefull fortune hath made
+most fearfull to us: making my selfe to see my sonne, and my daughter
+here, her husband, besieging the walles of his natiue countrie. So as that
+which is the only comfort to all other in their adversitie and miserie, to
+pray unto the goddes, and to call to them for aide, is the onely thinge
+which plongeth us into most deepe perplexitie. For we cannot (alas)
+together pray, both for victorie, for our countrie, and for safety of thy
+life also: but a worlde of grievous curses, yea more than any mortall
+enemie can heappe uppon us, are forcibly wrapt up in our prayers. For the
+bitter soppe of most harde choyce is offered thy wife and children, to
+foregoe the one of the two: either to lose the persone of thy selfe, or
+the nurse of their natiue contrie. For my selfe (my sonne) I am determined
+not to tarrie, till fortune in my life time doe make an ende of this
+warre. For if I cannot persuade thee, rather to doe good unto both
+parties, then to ouerthrowe and destroye the one, preferring loue and
+nature before the malice and calamitie of warres: thou shalt see, my
+sonne, and trust unto it, thou shalt no soner marche forward to assault
+thy countrie, but thy foote shall tread upon thy mother's wombe, that
+brought thee first into this world."
+
+The length of this quotation will be excused for its curiosity; and it
+happily wants not the assistance of a Comment. But matters may not always
+be so easily managed:--a plagiarism from Anacreon hath been detected:
+
+
+    The Sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
+    Robs the vast Sea. The Moon's an arrant thief,
+    And her pale fire she snatches from the Sun.
+    The Sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
+    The Moon into salt tears. The Earth's a thief,
+    That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n
+    From gen'ral excrements: each thing's a thief.
+
+
+"This," says Dr. Dodd, "is a good deal in the manner of the celebrated
+_drinking Ode_, too well known to be inserted." Yet it may be alleged by
+those who imagine Shakespeare to have been generally able to think for
+himself, that the topicks are obvious, and their application is
+different.--But for argument's sake, let the Parody be granted; and "our
+Author," says some one, "may be puzzled to prove that there was a Latin
+translation of Anacreon at the time Shakespeare wrote his _Timon of
+Athens_." This challenge is peculiarly unhappy: for I do not at present
+recollect any _other Classick_ (if indeed, with great deference to Mynheer
+De Pauw, Anacreon may be numbered amongst them) that was _originally_
+published with _two_ Latin translations.
+
+But this is not all. Puttenham in his _Arte of English Poesie_, 1589,
+quotes some one of a "reasonable good facilitie in translation, who
+finding _certaine_ of Anacreon's Odes very well translated by Ronsard the
+French poet--comes our Minion, and translates the same out of French into
+English": and his strictures upon him evince the publication. Now this
+identical Ode is to be met with in Ronsard! and as his works are in few
+hands, I will take the liberty of transcribing it:
+
+
+    La terre les eaux va boivant,
+    L'arbre la boit par sa racine,
+    La mer salee boit le vent,
+    Et le Soleil boit la marine.
+    Le Soleil est beu de la Lune,
+    Tout boit soit en haut ou en bas:
+    Suivant ceste reigle commune,
+    Pourquoy donc ne boirons-nous pas?--Edit. Fol. p. 507.
+
+
+I know not whether an observation or two relative to our Author's
+acquaintance with Homer be worth our investigation. The ingenious Mrs.
+Lenox observes on a passage of _Troilus and Cressida_, where Achilles is
+roused to battle by the death of Patroclus, that Shakespeare must _here_
+have had the _Iliad_ in view, as "the old Story, which in many places he
+hath faithfully copied, is absolutely silent with respect to this
+circumstance."
+
+And Mr. Upton is positive that the _sweet oblivious Antidote_, inquired
+after by Macbeth, could be nothing but the _Nepenthe_ described in the
+_Odyssey_,
+
+
+    {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}.
+
+
+I will not insist upon the Translations by Chapman; as the first Editions
+are without date, and it may be difficult to ascertain the exact time of
+their publication. But the _former_ circumstance might have been learned
+from Alexander Barclay; and the _latter_ more fully from Spenser than from
+Homer himself.
+
+"But Shakespeare," persists Mr. Upton, "hath some _Greek Expressions_."
+Indeed!--"We have one in _Coriolanus_,
+
+
+    ----It is held
+    That valour is the chiefest Virtue, and
+    Most dignifies the _Haver_;----
+
+
+and another in _Macbeth_, where Banquo addresses the _Weïrd-Sisters_,
+
+
+    ----My noble Partner
+    You greet with present grace, and great prediction
+    Of noble _Having_.----
+
+    Gr. {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~},--and {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, to the _Haver_.
+
+
+This was the common language of Shakespeare's time. "Lye in a
+water-bearer's house!" says Master Mathew of Bobadil, "a Gentleman of his
+_Havings_!"
+
+Thus likewise John Davies in his _Pleasant Descant upon English Proverbs_,
+printed with his _Scourge of Folly_, about 1612:
+
+
+    _Do well and have well!_--neyther so still:
+    For some are good _Doers_, whose _Havings_ are ill;
+
+
+and Daniel the Historian uses it frequently. _Having_ seems to be
+synonymous with _Behaviour_ in Gawin Douglas and the elder Scotch writers.
+
+_Haver_, in the sense of _Possessor_, is every where met with: tho'
+unfortunately the {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} of Sophocles, produced as an authority
+for it, is suspected by Kuster, as good a critick in these matters, to
+have absolutely a different meaning.
+
+But what shall we say to the learning of the Clown in _Hamlet_, "Ay, tell
+me that, and _unyoke_"? alluding to the {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} of the Greeks: and Homer
+and his Scholiast are quoted accordingly!
+
+If it be not sufficient to say, with Dr. Warburton, that the phrase might
+be taken from Husbandry, without much depth of reading; we may produce it
+from a _Dittie_ of the workmen of Dover, preserved in the additions to
+Holingshed, p. 1546.
+
+
+    My bow is broke, I would _unyoke_,
+    My foot is sore, I can worke no more.
+
+
+An expression of my Dame Quickly is next fastened upon, which you may look
+for in vain in the modern text; she calls some of the pretended Fairies in
+the _Merry Wives of Windsor_,
+
+
+    ----_Orphan_ Heirs of fixed Destiny;
+
+
+"and how elegant is this!" quoth Mr. Upton, supposing the word to be used,
+as a Grecian would have used it, "{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} ab {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}--acting in darkness and
+obscurity."
+
+Mr. Heath assures us that the bare mention of such an interpretation is a
+sufficient refutation of it: and his critical word will be rather taken in
+Greek than in English: in the same hands therefore I will venture to leave
+all our author's knowledge of the _Old Comedy_, and his etymological
+learning in the word, _Desdemona_.
+
+Surely poor Mr. Upton was very little acquainted with _Fairies_,
+notwithstanding his laborious study of Spenser. The last authentick
+account of them is from our countryman William Lilly; and it by no means
+agrees with the _learned_ interpretation: for the _angelical Creatures_
+appeared in his _Hurst_ wood in a _most illustrious Glory_,--"and indeed,"
+says the Sage, "it is not given to very many persons to endure their
+_glorious aspects_."
+
+The only use of transcribing these things is to shew what absurdities men
+for ever run into, when they lay down an Hypothesis, and afterward seek
+for arguments in the support of it. What else could induce this man, by no
+means a bad scholar, to doubt whether _Truepenny_ might not be derived
+from {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}; and quote upon us with much parade an old Scholiast on
+Aristophanes?--I will not stop to confute him: nor take any notice of two
+or three more Expressions, in which he was pleased to suppose some learned
+meaning or other; all which he might have found in every Writer of the
+time, or still more easily in the vulgar Translation of the Bible, by
+consulting the Concordance of Alexander Cruden.
+
+But whence have we the Plot of _Timon_, except from the Greek of
+Lucian?--The Editors and Criticks have been never at a greater loss than in
+their inquiries of this sort; and the source of a Tale hath been often in
+vain sought abroad, which might easily have been found at home: My good
+friend, the very ingenious Editor of the _Reliques of ancient English
+Poetry_, hath shewn our Author to have been sometimes contented with a
+legendary _Ballad_.
+
+The Story of the _Misanthrope_ is told in almost every Collection of the
+time; and particularly in two books, with which Shakespeare was intimately
+acquainted; the _Palace of Pleasure_, and the _English Plutarch_. Indeed
+from a passage in an old Play, called _Jack Drum's Entertainment_, I
+conjecture that he had before made his appearance on the Stage.
+
+Were this a proper place for such a disquisition, I could give you many
+cases of this kind. We are sent for instance to Cinthio for the Plot of
+_Measure for Measure_, and Shakespeare's judgement hath been attacked for
+some deviations from him in the conduct of it: when probably all he knew
+of the matter was from Madam Isabella in the _Heptameron_ of Whetstone.
+Ariosto is continually quoted for the Fable of _Much ado about Nothing_;
+but I suspect our Poet to have been satisfied with the _Geneura_ of
+Turberville. _As you like it_ was _certainly borrowed_, if we believe Dr.
+Grey, and Mr. Upton, from the _Coke's Tale of Gamelyn_; which by the way
+was not _printed_ 'till a century afterward: when in truth the old Bard,
+who was no hunter of MSS., contented himself solely with Lodge's
+_Rosalynd_ or Euphues' _Golden Legacye_. 4to. 1590. The Story of _All's
+well that ends well_, or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes called,
+_Love's labour wonne_, is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but
+it came immediately to Shakespeare from Painter's _Giletta of Narbon_. Mr.
+Langbaine could not conceive whence the Story of _Pericles_ could be
+taken, "not meeting in History with any such _Prince of Tyre_"; yet his
+legend may be found at large in old Gower, under the name of _Appolynus_.
+
+_Pericles_ is one of the Plays omitted in the later Editions, as well as
+the early Folios, and not improperly; tho' it was published many years
+before the death of Shakespeare, with his name in the Title-page. Aulus
+Gellius informs us that some Plays are ascribed absolutely to Plautus,
+which he only _re-touched_ and _polished_; and this is undoubtedly the
+case with our Author likewise. The revival of this performance, which Ben
+Jonson calls _stale_ and _mouldy_, was probably his earliest attempt in
+the Drama. I know that another of these discarded pieces, the _Yorkshire
+Tragedy_, had been frequently called so; but most certainly it was not
+written by our Poet at all: nor indeed was it printed in his life-time.
+The Fact on which it is built was perpetrated no sooner than 1604: much
+too late for so mean a performance from the hand of Shakespeare.
+
+Sometimes a very little matter detects a forgery. You may remember a Play
+called the _Double Falshood_, which Mr. Theobald was desirous of palming
+upon the world for a posthumous one of Shakespeare: and I see it is
+classed as such in the last Edition of the Bodleian Catalogue. Mr. Pope
+himself, after all the strictures of Scriblerus, in a Letter to Aaron
+Hill, supposes it of that age; but a mistaken accent determines it to have
+been written since the middle of the last century:
+
+
+         ----This late example
+    Of base Henriquez, bleeding in me now,
+    From each good _Aspect_ takes away my trust.
+
+
+And in another place,
+
+
+    You have an _Aspect_, Sir, of wondrous wisdom.
+
+
+The word _Aspect_, you perceive, is here accented on the _first_ Syllable,
+which, I am confident, in _any_ sense of it, was never the case in the
+time of Shakespeare; though it may sometimes appear to be so, when we do
+not observe a preceding _Elision_.
+
+Some of the professed Imitators of our old Poets have not attended to this
+and many other _Minutiæ_: I could point out to you several performances in
+the respective Styles of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare, which the
+_imitated_ Bard could not possibly have either read or construed.
+
+This very accent hath troubled the Annotators on Milton. Dr. Bentley
+observes it to be "a _tone_ different from the present use." Mr.
+Manwaring, in his _Treatise of Harmony and Numbers_, very solemnly informs
+us that "this Verse is defective both in Accent and Quantity, B. 3. V.
+266.
+
+
+    His words here ended, but his meek _Aspéct_
+    Silent yet spake.----
+
+
+Here," says he, "a syllable is _acuted_ and _long_, whereas it should be
+_short_ and _graved_"!
+
+And a still more extraordinary Gentleman, one Green, who published a
+Specimen of a _new Version_ of the _Paradise Lost_, into BLANK verse, "by
+which that amazing Work is brought somewhat nearer the Summit of
+Perfection," begins with correcting a blunder in the fourth book, V. 540:
+
+
+         ----The setting Sun
+    Slowly descended, and with right _Aspéct_--
+    Levell'd his evening rays.----
+
+
+_Not so_ in the _New Version_:
+
+
+    Meanwhile the setting Sun descending slow--
+    Level'd with _áspect_ right his ev'ning rays.
+
+
+Enough of such Commentators.--The celebrated Dr. Dee had a _Spirit_, who
+would sometimes condescend to correct him, when peccant in _Quantity_: and
+it had been kind of him to have a little assisted the _Wights_
+above-mentioned.--Milton affected the _Antique_; but it may seem more
+extraordinary that the old Accent should be adopted in _Hudibras_.
+
+After all, the _Double Falshood_ is superior to Theobald. One passage, and
+one only in the whole Play, he pretended to have written:
+
+
+         ----Strike up, my Masters;
+    But touch the Strings with a religious softness:
+    Teach sound to languish thro' the Night's dull Ear,
+    Till Melancholy start from her lazy Couch,
+    And Carelessness grow Convert to Attention.
+
+
+These lines were particularly admired; and his vanity could not resist the
+opportunity of claiming them: but his claim had been more easily allowed
+to _any other_ part of the performance.
+
+To whom then shall we ascribe it?--Somebody hath told us, who should seem
+to be a _Nostrum-monger_ by his argument, that, let _Accents_ be how they
+will, it is called _an original Play of William Shakespeare_ in the _Kings
+Patent_, prefixed to Mr. Theobald's Edition, 1728, and consequently there
+_could_ be no fraud in the matter. Whilst, on the contrary, the _Irish_
+Laureat, Mr. Victor, remarks (and were it true, it would be certainly
+decisive) that the Plot is borrowed from a Novel of Cervantes, not
+published 'till the year after Shakespeare's death. But unluckily the same
+Novel appears in a part of _Don Quixote_, which was printed in Spanish,
+1605, and in English by Shelton, 1612.--The same reasoning, however, which
+exculpated our Author from the _Yorkshire Tragedy_, may be applied on the
+present occasion.
+
+But you want _my_ opinion:--and from every mark of Style and Manner, I make
+no doubt of ascribing it to Shirley. Mr. Langbaine informs us that he left
+some Plays in MS.--These were written about the time of the _Restoration_,
+when the _Accent_ in question was more generally altered.
+
+Perhaps the mistake arose from an _abbreviation_ of the name. Mr. Dodsley
+knew not that the Tragedy of _Andromana_ was Shirley's, from the very same
+cause. Thus a whole stream of Biographers tell us that Marston's Plays
+were printed at London, 1633, "by the care of _William Shakespeare_, the
+famous Comedian."--Here again I suppose, in some Transcript, the real
+Publisher's name, _William Sheares_, was _abbreviated_. No one hath
+protracted the life of Shakespeare beyond 1616, except Mr. Hume; who is
+pleased to add a year to it, in contradiction to all manner of evidence.
+
+Shirley is spoken of with contempt in _Mac Flecknoe_; but his Imagination
+is sometimes fine to an extraordinary degree. I recollect a passage in the
+fourth book of the _Paradise Lost_, which hath been suspected of
+_Imitation_, as a _prettiness_ below the Genius of Milton: I mean, where
+_Uriel_ glides _backward and forward_ to Heaven on a _Sunbeam_. Dr. Newton
+informs us that this might possibly be hinted by a Picture of Annibal
+Caracci in the King of France's Cabinet: but I am apt to believe that
+Milton had been struck with a Portrait in Shirley. Fernando, in the Comedy
+of the _Brothers_, 1652, describes Jacinta at _Vespers_:
+
+
+    Her eye did seem to labour with a tear,
+    Which suddenly took birth, but overweigh'd
+    With it's own swelling, drop'd upon her bosome;
+    Which, by reflexion of her light, appear'd
+    As nature meant her sorrow for an ornament:
+    After, her looks grew chearfull, and I saw
+    A smile shoot gracefull upward from her eyes,
+    As if they had gain'd a victory o'er grief,
+    And with it many _beams_ twisted themselves,
+    Upon whose _golden threads_ the _Angels_ walk
+    _To and again from Heaven_.----
+
+
+You must not think me infected with the spirit of Lauder, if I give you
+another of Milton's Imitations:
+
+
+         ----The Swan _with arched neck_
+    Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
+    Her state with oary feet.--B. 7. V. 438, &c.
+
+
+"The ancient Poets," says Mr. Richardson, "have not hit upon this beauty;
+so lavish as they have been in their descriptions of the _Swan_. Homer
+calls the Swan _long-necked_, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}; but how much more
+_pittoresque_, if he had _arched_ this length of neck?"
+
+For _this beauty_, however, Milton was beholden to Donne; whose name, I
+believe, at present is better known than his writings:
+
+
+         ----Like a Ship in her full trim,
+    A _Swan_, so white that you may unto him
+      Compare all whitenesse, but himselfe to none,
+    Glided along, and as he glided watch'd,
+    And with his _arched neck_ this poore fish catch'd.--_Progresse of
+                the Soul_, St. 24.
+
+
+Those highly finished Landscapes, the _Seasons_, are indeed copied from
+Nature: but Thomson sometimes recollected the hand of his Master:
+
+
+         ----The stately-sailing Swan
+    Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale;
+    _And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet_
+    Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier Isle,
+    Protective of his young.----
+
+
+But _to return_, as we say on other occasions--Perhaps the Advocates for
+Shakespeare's knowledge of the Latin language may be more successful. Mr.
+Gildon takes the Van. "It is plain that He was acquainted with the Fables
+of antiquity very well: that some of the Arrows of Cupid are pointed with
+Lead, and others with Gold, he found in Ovid; and what he speaks of Dido,
+in Virgil: nor do I know any translation of these Poets so ancient as
+Shakespeare's time." The passages on which these sagacious remarks are
+made occur in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_; and exhibit, we see, a clear
+proof of acquaintance with the Latin Classicks. But we are not answerable
+for Mr. Gildon's ignorance; he might have been told of Caxton and Douglas,
+of Surrey and Stanyhurst, of Phaer and Twyne, of Fleming and Golding, of
+Turberville and Churchyard! but these Fables were easily known without the
+help of either the originals or the translations. The Fate of Dido had
+been sung very early by Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate; Marloe had even
+already introduced her to the Stage: and Cupid's arrows appear with their
+characteristick differences in Surrey, in Sidney, in Spenser, and every
+Sonnetteer of the time. Nay, their very names were exhibited long before
+in the _Romaunt of the Rose_: a work you may venture to look into,
+notwithstanding Master Prynne hath so positively assured us, on the word
+of John Gerson, that the Author is most certainly damned, if he did not
+care for a serious repentance.
+
+Mr. Whalley argues in the same manner, and with the same success. He
+thinks a passage in the _Tempest_,
+
+
+         ---- High Queen of State,
+    Great Juno comes; I know her by her _Gait_,
+
+
+a remarkable instance of Shakespeare's knowledge of ancient Poetick story;
+and that the hint was furnished by the _Divum incedo Regina_ of Virgil.
+
+You know, honest John Taylor, the _Water-poet_, declares that _he never
+learned his Accidence_, and that _Latin and French_ were to him
+_Heathen-Greek_; yet, by the help of Mr. Whalley's argument, I will prove
+him a _learned_ Man, in spite of every thing he may say to the contrary:
+for thus he makes a _Gallant_ address his _Lady_,
+
+"Most inestimable Magazine of Beauty--in whom _the Port and Majesty of
+Juno_, the Wisdom of Jove's braine-bred Girle, and the Feature of
+Cytherea, have their domestical habitation."
+
+In the _Merchant of Venice_, we have an oath "By _two-headed Janus_"; and
+here, says Dr. Warburton, Shakespeare shews his knowledge in the Antique:
+and so again does the _Water-poet_, who describes Fortune,
+
+
+    Like a _Janus_ with a _double-face_.
+
+
+But Shakespeare hath somewhere a _Latin Motto_, quoth Dr. Sewel; and so
+hath John Taylor, and a whole Poem upon it into the bargain.
+
+You perceive, my dear Sir, how vague and indeterminate such arguments must
+be: for in fact this _sweet Swan of Thames_, as Mr. Pope calls him, hath
+more scraps of Latin, and allusions to antiquity, than are any where to be
+met with in the writings of Shakespeare. I am sorry to trouble you with
+trifles, yet what must be done, when grave men insist upon them?
+
+It should seem to be the opinion of some modern criticks, that the
+personages of classick land began only to be known in England in the time
+of Shakespeare; or rather, that he particularly had the honour of
+introducing them to the notice of his countrymen.
+
+For instance,--_Rumour painted full of tongues_ gives us a Prologue to one
+of the parts of _Henry the fourth_; and, says Dr. Dodd, Shakespeare had
+doubtless a view to either Virgil or Ovid in their description of Fame.
+
+But why so? Stephen Hawes, in his _Pastime of Pleasure_, had long before
+exhibited her in the same manner,
+
+
+    A goodly Lady envyroned about
+    With _tongues_ of fyre;----
+
+
+and so had Sir Thomas More in one of his _Pageants_,
+
+
+    _Fame_ I am called, mervayle you nothing
+    Though with _tonges_ I am compassed all rounde;
+
+
+not to mention her elaborate Portrait by Chaucer, in the _Boke of Fame_;
+and by John Higgins, one of the Assistants in the _Mirour for
+Magistrates_, in his Legend of King Albanacte.
+
+A very liberal Writer on the _Beauties of Poetry_, who hath been more
+conversant in the ancient Literature of other Countries than his own,
+"cannot but wonder that a Poet, whose classical Images are composed of the
+finest parts, and breath the very spirit of ancient Mythology, should pass
+for being illiterate:
+
+
+    See, what a grace was seated on his brow!
+    Hyperion's curls: the front of Jove himself:
+    An eye like Mars to threaten and command:
+    A station like the herald Mercury,
+    New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.--_Hamlet._"
+
+
+_Illiterate_ is an ambiguous term: the question is, whether Poetick
+History could be only known by an Adept in _Languages_. It is no
+reflection on this ingenious Gentleman, when I say that I use on this
+occasion the words of a _better_ Critick, who yet was not willing to carry
+the _illiteracy_ of our Poet _too far_:--"They who are in such astonishment
+at the _learning_ of Shakespeare, forget that the Pagan Imagery was
+familiar to all the Poets of his time; and that abundance of this sort of
+learning was to be picked up from almost every English book that he could
+take into his hands." For not to insist upon Stephen Bateman's _Golden
+booke of the leaden Goddes_, 1577, and several other laborious
+compilations on the subject, all this and much more Mythology might as
+perfectly have been learned from the _Testament of Creseide_, and the
+_Fairy Queen_, as from a regular Pantheon, or Polymetis himself.
+
+Mr. Upton, not contented with _Heathen_ learning, when he finds it in the
+text, must necessarily superadd it, when it appears to be wanting; because
+Shakespeare most certainly hath lost it by accident!
+
+In _Much ado about Nothing_, Don Pedro says of the insensible Benedict,
+"He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-string, and the little _Hangman_
+dare not shoot at him."
+
+This mythology is not recollected in the Ancients, and therefore the
+critick hath no doubt but his Author wrote "_Henchman,--a Page, Pusio_: and
+_this_ word seeming too hard for the Printer, he translated the little
+Urchin into a _Hangman_, a character no way belonging to him."
+
+But this character was not borrowed from the Ancients;--it came from the
+_Arcadia_ of Sir Philip Sidney:
+
+
+    Millions of yeares this old drivell Cupid lives;
+    While still more wretch, more wicked he doth prove:
+    Till now at length that Jove an office gives,
+    (At Juno's suite who much did Argus love)
+      In this our world a _Hangman_ for to be
+      Of all those fooles that will have all they see.--B. 2. Ch. 14.
+
+
+I know it may be objected on the authority of such Biographers as
+Theophilus Cibber, and the Writer of the Life of Sir Philip, prefixed to
+the modern Editions, that the _Arcadia_ was not published before 1613, and
+consequently too late for this imitation: but I have a Copy in my own
+possession, printed for W. Ponsonbie, 1590, 4to. which hath escaped the
+notice of the industrious Ames, and the rest of our typographical
+Antiquaries.
+
+Thus likewise every word of antiquity is to be cut down to the classical
+standard.
+
+In a Note on the Prologue to _Troilus and Cressida_ (which, by the way, is
+not met with in the _Quarto_), Mr. Theobald informs us that the very
+_names_ of the gates of Troy have been barbarously demolished by the
+Editors: and a deal of learned dust he makes in setting them right again;
+much however to Mr. Heath's satisfaction. Indeed the learning is modestly
+withdrawn from the later Editions, and we are quietly instructed to read,
+
+
+    Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilia, Scæa, Troian,
+    And Antenorides.
+
+
+But had he looked into the _Troy boke_ of Lydgate, instead of puzzling
+himself with Dares Phrygius, he would have found the horrid demolition to
+have been neither the work of Shakespeare nor his Editors.
+
+
+    Therto his cyte | compassed enuyrowne
+    Hadde gates VI to entre into the towne:
+    The firste of all | and strengest eke with all,
+    Largest also | and moste pryncypall,
+    Of myghty byldyng | alone pereless,
+    Was by the kynge called | Dardanydes;
+    And in storye | lyke as it is founde,
+    Tymbria | was named the seconde;
+    And the thyrde | called Helyas,
+    The fourthe gate | hyghte also Cetheas;
+    The fyfthe Trojana, | the syxth Anthonydes,
+    Stronge and myghty | both in werre and pes.--Lond. empr. by R.
+                Pynson, 1513. Fol. B. 2. Ch. 11.
+
+
+Our excellent friend Mr. Hurd hath born a noble testimony on our side of
+the question. "Shakespeare," says this true Critick, "owed the felicity of
+freedom from the bondage of classical superstition to the _want_ of what
+is called the _advantage_ of a learned Education.--This, as well as a vast
+superiority of Genius, hath contributed to lift this astonishing man to
+the glory of being esteemed the most original _thinker_ and _speaker_,
+since the times of Homer." And hence indisputably the amazing Variety of
+Style and Manner, unknown to all other Writers: an argument of _itself_
+sufficient to emancipate Shakespeare from the supposition of a _Classical
+training_. Yet, to be honest, _one_ Imitation is _fastened_ on our Poet:
+which hath been insisted upon likewise by Mr. Upton and Mr. Whalley. You
+remember it in the famous Speech of Claudio in _Measure for Measure_:
+
+
+    Ay, but to die and go we know not where! &c.
+
+
+Most certainly the Ideas of a "Spirit bathing in fiery floods," of
+residing "in thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice," or of being
+"imprisoned in the viewless winds," are not _original_ in our Author; but
+I am not sure that they came from the _Platonick Hell_ of Virgil. The
+Monks also had their hot and their cold Hell, "The fyrste is fyre that
+ever brenneth, and never gyveth lighte," says an old Homily:--"The seconde
+is passyng colde, that yf a grete hylle of fyre were casten therin, it
+sholde torne to yce." One of their Legends, well remembered in the time of
+Shakespeare, gives us a Dialogue between a Bishop and a Soul tormented in
+a piece of ice, which was brought to cure _a grete brenning heate_ in his
+foot: take care you do not interpret this the _Gout_, for I remember M.
+Menage quotes a _Canon_ upon us,
+
+
+    Si quis dixerit Episcopum PODAGRA laborare, Anathema sit.
+
+
+Another tells us of the Soul of a Monk fastened to a Rock, which the winds
+were to blow about for a twelve-month, and purge of it's Enormities.
+Indeed this doctrine was before now introduced into poetick fiction, as
+you may see in a Poem, "where the Lover declareth his pains to exceed far
+the pains of Hell," among the many miscellaneous ones subjoined to the
+Works of Surrey. Nay, a very learned and inquisitive Brother-Antiquary,
+our Greek Professor, hath observed to me on the authority of Blefkenius,
+that this was the ancient opinion of the inhabitants of Iceland; who were
+certainly very little read either in the _Poet_ or the _Philosopher_.
+
+After all, Shakespeare's curiosity might lead him to _Translations_. Gawin
+Douglas really changes the _Platonick Hell_ into the "punytion of Saulis
+in Purgatory": and it is observable that when the Ghost informs Hamlet of
+his Doom there,
+
+
+    Till the foul crimes done in his days of nature
+    Are _burnt and purg'd away_,----
+
+
+the Expression is very similar to the Bishop's: I will give you his
+Version as concisely as I can; "It is a nedeful thyng to suffer panis and
+torment--Sum in the wyndis, Sum under the watter, and in the fire uthir
+Sum:--thus the mony Vices--
+
+
+    Contrakkit in the corpis be _done away_
+    _And purgit_.----_Sixte Booke of Eneados._ Fol. p. 191.
+
+
+It seems, however, "that Shakespeare _himself_ in the _Tempest_ hath
+translated some expressions of _Virgil_: witness the _O Dea certe_." I
+presume we are here directed to the passage where Ferdinand says of
+Miranda, after hearing the Songs of Ariel,
+
+
+         ----Most sure, the Goddess
+    On whom these airs attend;
+
+
+and so _very small Latin_ is sufficient for this formidable translation,
+that if it be thought any honour to our Poet, I am loth to deprive him of
+it; but his honour is not built on such a sandy foundation. Let us turn to
+a _real Translator_, and examine whether the Idea might not be fully
+comprehended by an English reader; _supposing_ it necessarily borrowed
+from Virgil. Hexameters in our own language are almost forgotten; we will
+quote therefore this time from Stanyhurst:
+
+
+    O to thee, fayre Virgin, what terme may rightly be fitted?
+    Thy tongue, thy visage no mortal frayltie resembleth.
+    ----_No doubt, a Godesse_!--Edit. 1583.
+
+
+Gabriel Harvey desired only to be "_Epitaph'd_, the Inventor of the
+_English Hexameter_," and for a while every one would be _halting on Roman
+feet_; but the ridicule of our Fellow-Collegian Hall, in one of his
+_Satires_, and the reasoning of Daniel, in his _Defence of Rhyme_ against
+Campion, presently reduced us to our original Gothic.
+
+But to come nearer the purpose, what will you say if I can shew you that
+Shakespeare, when, in the favourite phrase, he had a Latin Poet _in his
+Eye_, most assuredly made use of a Translation?
+
+Prospero in the _Tempest_ begins the Address to his attendant _Spirits_,
+
+
+    Ye Elves of Hills, of standing Lakes, and Groves.
+
+
+This speech Dr. Warburton rightly observes to be borrowed from Medea in
+Ovid: and "it proves," says Mr. Holt, "beyond contradiction, that
+Shakespeare was perfectly acquainted with the Sentiments of the Ancients
+on the Subject of Inchantments." The original lines are these,
+
+
+    Auræque, & venti, montesque, amnesque, lacusque,
+    Diique omnes nemorum, diique omnes noctis adeste.
+
+
+It happens, however, that the translation by Arthur Golding is by no means
+literal, and Shakespeare hath closely followed it;
+
+
+    Ye Ayres and Winds; _Ye Elves of Hills_, of Brookes, of Woods
+                alone,
+    _Of standing Lakes_, and of the Night, approche ye everych one.
+
+
+I think it is unnecessary to pursue this any further; especially as more
+powerful arguments await us.
+
+In the _Merchant of Venice_, the Jew, as an apology for his cruelty to
+Anthonio, rehearses many _Sympathies_ and _Antipathies_ for which _no
+reason can be rendered_,
+
+
+    Some love not a gaping Pig----
+    And others when a _Bagpipe_ sings i' th' nose
+    Cannot contain their urine for _affection_.
+
+
+This incident Dr. Warburton supposes to be taken from a passage in
+Scaliger's _Exercitations against Cardan_, "Narrabo tibi jocosam
+Sympathiam Reguli Vasconis Equitis: Is dum viveret, audito _Phormingis_
+sono, urinam illico facere cogebatur." "And," proceeds the Doctor, "to
+make this jocular story still more ridiculous, Shakespeare, I suppose,
+translated _Phorminx_ by _Bagpipes_."
+
+Here we seem fairly caught;--for Scaliger's work was never, as the term
+goes, _done into English_. But luckily in an old translation from the
+French of Peter le Loier, entitled, _A treatise of Specters, or straunge
+Sights, Visions and Apparitions appearing sensibly unto men_, we have this
+identical Story from Scaliger: and what is still more, a marginal Note
+gives us in all probability the very fact alluded to, as well as the word
+of Shakespeare, "Another Gentleman of this quality liued of late in Deuon
+neere Excester, who could not endure the playing on a _Bagpipe_."
+
+We may just add, as some observation hath been made upon it, that
+_Affection_ in the sense of _Sympathy_ was formerly _technical_; and so
+used by Lord Bacon, Sir Kenelm Digby, and many other Writers.
+
+A single word in Queen Catherine's Character of Wolsey, in _Henry the
+eighth_, is brought by the Doctor as another argument for the learning of
+Shakespeare:
+
+
+         ----He was a man
+    Of an unbounded Stomach, ever ranking
+    Himself with Princes; one that by _Suggestion_
+    Ty'd all the kingdom. Simony was fair play.
+    His own opinion was his law, i' th' presence
+    He would say untruths, and be ever double
+    Both in his words and meaning. He was never,
+    But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.
+    His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
+    But his performance, as he now is, nothing.
+    Of his own body he was ill, and gave
+    The Clergy ill example.
+
+
+"The word _Suggestion_," says the Critick, "is here used with great
+propriety, and _seeming_ knowledge of the Latin tongue": and he proceeds
+to settle the sense of it from _the late Roman writers and their
+glossers_. But Shakespeare's knowledge was from Holingshed, whom he
+follows _verbatim_:
+
+"This Cardinal was of a great stomach, for he compted himself equal with
+princes, and by craftie _Suggestion_ got into his hands innumerable
+treasure: he forced little on simonie, and was not pitifull, and stood
+affectionate in his own opinion: in open presence he would lie and saie
+untruth, and was double both in speech and meaning: he would promise much
+and performe little: he was vicious of his bodie, and gaue the clergie
+euil example." Edit. 1587. p. 922.
+
+Perhaps after this quotation you may not think that Sir Thomas Hanmer, who
+reads _Tyth'd_ instead of _Ty'd all the kingdom_, deserves quite so much
+of Dr. Warburton's severity.--Indisputably the passage, like every other in
+the Speech, is intended to express the meaning of the parallel one in the
+Chronicle: it cannot therefore be credited that any man, when the
+_Original_ was produced, should still chuse to defend a _cant_
+acceptation; and inform us, perhaps, _seriously_, that in _gaming_
+language, from I know not what practice, to _tye_ is to _equal_! A sense
+of the word, as far as I have yet found, _unknown_ to our old Writers;
+and, if _known_, would not surely have been used in _this_ place by our
+Author.
+
+But let us turn from conjecture to Shakespeare's authorities. Hall, from
+whom the above description is copied by Holingshed, is very explicit in
+the demands of the Cardinal: who, having insolently told the Lord Mayor
+and Aldermen, "For sothe I thinke that _halfe_ your substaunce were to
+litle," assures them by way of comfort at the end of his harangue, that
+_upon an average_ the _tythe_ should be sufficient; "Sers, speake not to
+breake that thyng that is concluded, for _some_ shal not paie the _tenth_
+parte, and _some_ more."--And again; "Thei saied, the Cardinall by
+Visitacions, makyng of Abbottes, probates of testamentes, graunting of
+faculties, licences, and other pollyngs in his Courtes legantines, had
+made his _threasore egall with the kynges_." Edit. 1548. p. 138. and 143.
+
+Skelton, in his _Why come ye not to Court_, gives us, after his rambling
+manner, a curious character of Wolsey:
+
+
+         ----By and by
+    He will drynke us so dry
+    And sucke us so nye
+    That men shall scantly
+    Haue penny or halpennye
+    God saue hys noble grace
+    And graunt him a place
+    Endlesse to dwel
+    With the deuill of hel
+    For and he were there
+    We nead neuer feare
+    Of the feendes blacke
+    For I undertake
+    He wold so brag and crake
+    That he wold than make
+    The deuils to quake
+    To shudder and to shake
+    Lyke a fier drake
+    And with a cole rake
+    Bruse them on a brake
+    And binde them to a stake
+    And set hel on fyre
+    At his own desire
+    He is such a grym syre!--Edit. 1568.
+
+
+Mr. Upton and some other Criticks have thought it very _scholar-like_ in
+Hamlet to swear the Centinels on a _Sword_: but this is for ever met with.
+For instance, in the _Passus primus_ of _Pierce Plowman_,
+
+
+    Dauid in his daies dubbed knightes,
+    And did hem _swere on her sword_ to serue truth euer.
+
+
+And in _Hieronymo_, the common Butt of our Author, and the Wits of the
+time, says Lorenzo to Pedringano,
+
+
+    Swear on this cross, that what thou sayst is true--
+    But if I prove thee perjured and unjust,
+    This very _sword_, whereon thou took'st thine oath,
+    Shall be the worker of thy Tragedy!
+
+
+We have therefore no occasion to go with Mr. Garrick as far as the French
+of Brantôme to illustrate this ceremony: a _Gentleman_ who will be always
+allowed the _first Commentator_ on Shakespeare, when he does not carry us
+beyond _himself_.
+
+Mr. Upton, however, in the next place, produces a passage from _Henry the
+sixth_, whence he argues it to be very plain that our Author had not only
+_read_ Cicero's _Offices_, but even more _critically_ than many of the
+Editors:
+
+
+         ----This Villain here,
+    Being Captain of a _Pinnace_, threatens more
+    Than Bargulus, the strong Illyrian Pirate.
+
+
+So the _Wight_, he observes with great exultation, is named by Cicero in
+the Editions of Shakespeare's time, "Bargulus Illyrius latro"; tho' the
+modern Editors have chosen to call him Bardylis:--"and _thus_ I found it in
+_two_ MSS."--And _thus_ he might have found it in _two_ Translations,
+before Shakespeare was born. Robert Whytinton, 1533, calls him, "Bargulus
+a Pirate upon the see of Illiry"; and Nicholas Grimald, about twenty years
+afterward, "Bargulus the Illyrian Robber."
+
+But it had been easy to have checked Mr. Upton's exultation, by observing
+that Bargulus does not appear in the _Quarto_.--Which also is the case with
+some fragments of Latin verses, in the different _Parts_ of this
+_doubtful_ performance.
+
+It is scarcely worth mentioning that two or three more Latin passages,
+which are met with in our Author, are immediately transcribed from the
+Story or Chronicle before him. Thus in _Henry the fifth_, whose right to
+the kingdom of France is copiously demonstrated by the Archbishop:
+
+
+         ----There is no bar
+    To make against your Highness' claim to France,
+    But this which they produce from Pharamond:
+    In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant;
+    No Woman shall succeed in Salike land:
+    Which Salike land the French unjustly gloze
+    To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
+    The founder of this law and female bar.
+    Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
+    That the land Salike lies in Germany,
+    Between the floods of Sala and of Elve, &c.
+
+
+Archbishop Chichelie, says Holingshed, "did much inueie against the
+surmised and false fained law Salike, which the Frenchmen alledge euer
+against the kings of England in barre of their just title to the crowne of
+France. The very words of that supposed law are these, In terram Salicam
+mulieres ne succedant, that is to saie, Into the Salike land let not women
+succeed; which the French glossers expound to be the realm of France, and
+that this law was made by King Pharamond: whereas yet their owne authors
+affirme that the land Salike is in Germanie, between the rivers of Elbe
+and Sala," &c. p. 545.
+
+It hath lately been repeated from Mr. Guthrie's _Essay upon English
+Tragedy_, that the _Portrait_ of Macbeth's _Wife_ is copied from Buchanan,
+"whose spirit, as well as words, is translated into the Play of
+Shakespeare: and it had signified nothing to have pored only on Holingshed
+for _Facts_."--"Animus etiam, per se ferox, prope quotidianis conviciis
+uxoris (quæ omnium consiliorum ei erat conscia) stimulabatur."--This is the
+whole that Buchanan says of the _Lady_; and truly I see no more _spirit_
+in the Scotch than in the English Chronicler. "The wordes of the three
+weird Sisters also greatly encouraged him [to the Murder of Duncan], but
+specially his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing, as she that was
+very ambitious, brenning in unquenchable desire to beare the name of a
+Queene." Edit. 1577. p. 244.
+
+This part of Holingshed is an Abridgment of Johne Bellenden's translation
+of the _noble clerk_, Hector Boece, imprinted at Edinburgh, in Fol. 1541.
+I will give the passage as it is found there. "His wyfe impacient of lang
+tary (_as all wemen are_) specially quhare they ar desirus of ony purpos,
+gaif hym gret artation to pursew the thrid weird, that sche micht be ane
+quene, calland hym oft tymis febyl cowart and nocht desyrus of honouris,
+sen he durst not assailze the thing with manheid and curage, quhilk is
+offerit to hym be beniuolence of fortoun. Howbeit sindry otheris hes
+assailzeit sic thinges afore with maist terribyl jeopardyis, quhen they
+had not sic sickernes to succeid in the end of thair laubouris as he had."
+p. 173.
+
+But we can _demonstrate_ that Shakespeare had not the Story from Buchanan.
+According to _him_, the Weïrd-Sisters salute Macbeth, "Una Angusiæ Thamum,
+altera Moraviæ, tertia _Regem_."--Thane of Angus, and of Murray, &c., but
+according to Holingshed, immediately from Bellenden, as it stands in
+Shakespeare: "The first of them spake and sayde, All hayle Makbeth, Thane
+of Glammis,--the second of them said, Hayle Makbeth, Thane of Cawder; but
+the third sayde, All hayle Makbeth, that hereafter shall be _king of
+Scotland_." p. 243.
+
+
+    _1 Witch_. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
+
+    _2 Witch_. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
+
+    _3 Witch_. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be King hereafter!
+
+
+Here too our Poet found the equivocal Predictions, on which his Hero so
+fatally depended. "He had learned of certain wysards, how that he ought to
+take heede of Macduffe;--and surely hereupon had he put Macduffe to death,
+but a certaine witch, whom he had in great trust, had tolde that he should
+neuer be slain with _man borne of any woman_, nor vanquished till the Wood
+of Bernane came to the Castell of Dunsinane." p. 244. And the Scene
+between Malcolm and Macduff in the fourth act is almost literally taken
+from the Chronicle.
+
+Macbeth was certainly one of Shakespeare's latest Productions, and it
+might possibly have been suggested to him by a little performance on the
+same subject at Oxford, before King James, 1605. I will transcribe my
+notice of it from Wake's _Rex Platonicus_: "Fabulæ ansam dedit antiqua de
+Regia prosapia historiola apud Scoto-Britannos celebrata, quæ narrat tres
+olim Sibyllas occurrisse duobus Scotiæ proceribus, Macbetho & Banchoni, &
+illum prædixisse Regem futurum, sed Regem nullum geniturum; hunc Regem non
+futurum, sed Reges geniturum multos. Vaticinii veritatem rerum eventus
+comprobavit. Banchonis enim e stirpe Potentissimus Jacobus oriundus." p.
+29.
+
+A stronger argument hath been brought from the Plot of _Hamlet_. Dr. Grey
+and Mr. Whalley assure us that for _this_ Shakespeare _must_ have read
+_Saxo Grammaticus_ in Latin, for no translation hath been made into any
+modern Language. But the truth is, he did not take it from _Saxo_ at all;
+a Novel called the _Hystorie of Hamblet_ was his original: a fragment of
+which, in _black Letter_, I have been favoured with by a very curious and
+intelligent Gentleman, to whom the lovers of Shakespeare will some time or
+other owe great obligations.
+
+It hath indeed been said that, "IF _such an history exists_, it is almost
+impossible that any poet unacquainted with the Latin language (supposing
+his perceptive faculties to have been ever so acute) could have caught the
+characteristical madness of Hamlet, described by _Saxo Grammaticus_, so
+happily as it is delineated by Shakespeare."
+
+Very luckily, our Fragment gives us a part of Hamlet's Speech to his
+_Mother_, which sufficiently replies to this observation:--"It was not
+without cause, and juste occasion, that my gestures, countenances, and
+words seeme to proceed from a madman, and that I desire to haue all men
+esteeme mee wholy depriued of sence and, reasonable understanding, bycause
+I am well assured that he that hath made no conscience to kill his owne
+brother (accustomed to murthers, and allured with desire of gouernement
+without controll in his treasons) will not spare to saue himselfe with the
+like crueltie, in the blood and flesh of the loyns of his brother, by him
+massacred: and therefore it is better for me to fayne madnesse then to use
+my right sences as nature hath bestowed them upon me. The bright shining
+clearnes therof I am forced to hide vnder this shadow of dissimulation, as
+the sun doth hir beams vnder some great cloud, when the wether in summer
+time ouercasteth: the face of a mad man serueth to couer my gallant
+countenance, and the gestures of a fool are fit for me, to the end that,
+guiding my self wisely therin, I may preserue my life for the Danes and
+the memory of my late deceased father, for that the desire of reuenging
+his death is so ingrauen in my heart, that if I dye not shortly, I hope to
+take such and so great vengeance, that these Countryes shall for euer
+speake thereof. Neuerthelesse I must stay the time, meanes, and occasion,
+lest by making ouer great hast I be now the cause of mine owne sodaine
+ruine and ouerthrow, and by that meanes end, before I beginne to effect my
+hearts desire: hee that hath to doe with a wicked, disloyall, cruell, and
+discourteous man, must vse craft, and politike inuentions, such as a fine
+witte can best imagine, not to discouer his interprise: for seeing that by
+force I cannot effect my desire, reason alloweth me by dissimulation,
+subtiltie, and secret practises to proceed therein."
+
+But to put the matter out of all question, my communicative Friend
+above-mentioned, Mr. Capell (for why should I not give myself the credit
+of his name?), hath been fortunate enough to procure from the Collection
+of the Duke of Newcastle a _complete_ Copy of the _Hystorie of Hamblet_,
+which proves to be a translation from the French of Belleforest; and he
+tells me that "all the chief incidents of the Play, and all the capital
+Characters, are there in _embryo_, after a rude and barbarous manner:
+sentiments indeed there are none that Shakespeare could borrow; nor any
+expression but _one_, which is, where Hamlet kills Polonius behind the
+arras: in doing which he is made to cry out, as in the Play, '_a rat, a
+rat!_' "--So much for _Saxo Grammaticus_!
+
+It is scarcely conceivable how industriously the puritanical Zeal of the
+last age exerted itself in destroying, amongst better things, the innocent
+amusements of the former. Numberless _Tales_ and _Poems_ are alluded to in
+old Books, which are now perhaps no where to be found. Mr. Capell informs
+me (and he is in these matters the most able of all men to give
+information) that our Author appears to have been beholden to some Novels
+which he hath yet only seen in French or Italian: but he adds, "to say
+they are not in some English dress, prosaic or metrical, and perhaps with
+circumstances nearer to his stories, is what I will not take upon me to
+do: nor indeed is it what I believe; but rather the contrary, and that
+time and accident will bring some of them to light, if not all."----
+
+W. Painter, at the conclusion of the second _Tome_ of his _Palace of
+Pleasure_, 1567, _advertises_ the Reader, "bicause sodaynly (contrary to
+expectation) this Volume is risen to greater heape of leaues, I doe omit
+for this present time _sundry Nouels_ of mery deuise, reseruing the same
+to be joyned with the rest of an other part, wherein shall succeede the
+remnant of Bandello, specially sutch (suffrable) as the learned French man
+François de Belleforrest hath selected, and the choysest done in the
+Italian. Some also out of Erizzo, Ser Giouanni Florentino, Parabosco,
+Cynthio, Straparole, Sansouino, and the best liked out of the Queene of
+Nauarre, and other Authors. Take these in good part, with those that haue
+and shall come forth."--But I am not able to find that a _third Tome_ was
+ever published: and it is very probable that the Interest of his
+Booksellers, and more especially the prevailing Mode of the time, might
+lead him afterward to print his _sundry Novels_ separately. If this were
+the case, it is no wonder that such _fugitive Pieces_ are recovered with
+difficulty; when the _two Tomes_, which Tom. Rawlinson would have called
+_justa Volumina_, are almost annihilated. Mr. Ames, who searched after
+books of this sort with the utmost avidity, most certainly had not seen
+them when he published his _Typographical Antiquities_; as appears from
+his blunders about them: and possibly I myself might have remained in the
+same predicament, had I not been favoured with a Copy by my generous
+Friend, Mr. Lort.
+
+Mr. Colman, in the Preface to his elegant Translation of Terence, hath
+offered some arguments for the Learning of Shakespeare, which have been
+retailed with much confidence, since the appearance of Mr. Johnson's
+Edition.
+
+"Besides the resemblance of particular passages scattered up and down in
+different plays, it is well known that the _Comedy of Errors_ is in great
+measure founded on the _Menæchmi_ of Plautus; but I do not recollect ever
+to have seen it observed that the disguise of the _Pedant_ in the _Taming
+of the Shrew_, and his assuming the name and character of _Vincentio_,
+seem to be evidently taken from the disguise of the _Sycophanta_ in the
+_Trinummus_ of the said Author; and there is a quotation from the _Eunuch_
+of Terence also, so familiarly introduced into the Dialogue of the _Taming
+of the Shrew_, that I think it puts the question of Shakespeare's having
+read the Roman Comick Poets in the _original_ language out of all doubt,
+
+
+    Redime te captum, quam queas, minimo."
+
+
+With respect to _resemblances_, I shall not trouble you any further.--That
+the _Comedy of Errors_ is founded on the _Menæchmi_, it is notorious: nor
+is it less so, that a Translation of it by W. W., perhaps William Warner,
+the Author of _Albion's England_, was extant in the time of Shakespeare;
+tho' Mr. Upton, and some other advocates for his learning, have cautiously
+dropt the mention of it. Besides this (if indeed it were different), in
+the _Gesta Grayorum_, the Christmas Revels of the Gray's-Inn Gentlemen,
+1594, "a _Comedy of Errors_ like to Plautus his _Menechmus_ was played by
+the Players." And the same hath been suspected to be the Subject of the
+_goodlie Comedie of Plautus_ acted at Greenwich before the King and Queen
+in 1520; as we learn from Hall and Holingshed:--Riccoboni highly
+compliments the English on opening their stage so well; but unfortunately
+Cavendish, in his _Life of Wolsey_, calls it an _excellent Interlude in
+Latine_. About the same time it was exhibited in German at Nuremburgh, by
+the celebrated _Hanssach_, the _Shoemaker_.
+
+"But a character in the _Taming of the Shrew_ is borrowed from the
+_Trinummus_, and no translation of _that_ was extant."
+
+Mr. Colman indeed hath been better employ'd: but if he had met with an old
+Comedy, called _Supposes_, translated from Ariosto by George Gascoigne, he
+certainly would not have appealed to Plautus. Thence Shakespeare borrowed
+this part of the Plot (as well as some of the phraseology), though
+Theobald pronounces it his own invention: there likewise he found the
+quaint name of _Petruchio_. My young Master and his Man exchange habits
+and characters, and persuade a Scenæse, as he is called, to personate the
+Father, exactly as in the _Taming of the Shrew_, by the pretended danger
+of his coming from Sienna to Ferrara, contrary to the order of the
+government.
+
+Still, Shakespeare quotes a line from the _Eunuch_ of Terence: by memory
+too, and, what is more, "purposely alters it, in order to bring the sense
+within the compass of one line."--This remark was previous to Mr.
+Johnson's; or indisputably it would not have been made at all.--"Our
+Authour had this line from Lilly; which I mention that it may not be
+brought as an argument of his learning."
+
+But how, cries an unprovoked Antagonist, can you take upon you to say that
+he had it from Lilly, and not from Terence? I will answer for Mr. Johnson,
+who is above answering for himself.--Because it is quoted as it appears in
+the _Grammarian_, and not as it appears in the _Poet_.--And thus we have
+done with the _purposed_ alteration. Udall likewise in his _Floures for
+Latine speakyng, gathered oute of Terence_, 1560, reduces the passage to a
+single line, and subjoins a Translation.
+
+We have hitherto supposed Shakespeare the Author of the _Taming of the
+Shrew_, but his property in it is extremely disputable. I will give you my
+opinion, and the reasons on which it is founded. I suppose then the
+present Play not _originally_ the work of Shakespeare, but restored by him
+to the Stage, with the whole Induction of the Tinker, and some other
+occasional improvements; especially in the Character of Petruchio. It is
+very obvious that the _Induction_ and the _Play_ were either the works of
+different hands, or written at a great interval of time: the former is in
+our Author's _best_ manner, and the greater part of the _latter_ in his
+_worst_, or even below it. Dr. Warburton declares it to be _certainly_
+spurious: and without doubt, _supposing_ it to have been written by
+Shakespeare, it must have been one of his _earliest_ productions; yet it
+is not mentioned in the List of his Works by Meres in 1598.
+
+I have met with a facetious piece of Sir John Harrington, printed in 1596
+(and possibly there may be an earlier Edition), called, _The Metamorphosis
+of Ajax_, where I suspect an allusion to the old Play: "Read the _booke_
+of _Taming a Shrew_, which hath made a number of us so perfect, that _now_
+every one can rule a Shrew in our Countrey, save he that hath hir."--I am
+aware, a _modern_ Linguist may object that the word _Book_ does not at
+present seem _dramatick_, but it was once almost _technically_ so: Gosson
+in his _Schoole of Abuse, contayning a pleasaunt inuective against Poets,
+Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of a Common-wealth_,
+1579, mentions "twoo prose _Bookes_ plaied at the Belsauage"; and Hearne
+tells us, in a Note at the end of _William of Worcester_, that he had seen
+"a MS. in the nature of a _Play_ or _Interlude_, intitled, the _Booke_ of
+Sir _Thomas Moore_."
+
+And in fact there is such an old _anonymous_ Play in Mr. Pope's List: "A
+pleasant conceited History, called, _The Taming of a Shrew_--sundry times
+acted by the Earl of Pembroke his Servants." Which seems to have been
+republished by the Remains of that Company in 1607, when Shakespeare's
+copy appeared at the Black-Friars or the Globe.--Nor let this seem
+derogatory from the character of our Poet. There is no reason to believe
+that he wanted to claim the Play as his own; it was not even printed 'till
+some years after his death: but he merely revived it on his Stage as a
+_Manager_.--Ravenscroft assures us that this was really the case with
+_Titus Andronicus_; which, it may be observed, hath not Shakespeare's name
+on the Title-page of the only Edition published in his life-time. Indeed,
+from every internal mark, I have not the least doubt but this _horrible_
+Piece was originally written by the Author of the _Lines_ thrown into the
+mouth of the _Player_ in _Hamlet_, and of the Tragedy of _Locrine_: which
+likewise, from some assistance perhaps given to his Friend, hath been
+unjustly and ignorantly charged upon Shakespeare.
+
+But the _sheet-anchor_ holds fast: Shakespeare himself hath left some
+Translations from Ovid. The Epistles, says One, of Paris and Helen give a
+sufficient proof of his acquaintance with _that_ poet; and it may be
+concluded, says Another, that he was a competent judge of _other_ Authors
+who wrote in the same language.
+
+This hath been the universal cry, from Mr. Pope himself to the Criticks of
+yesterday. Possibly, however, the Gentlemen will hesitate a moment, if we
+tell them that Shakespeare was _not_ the Author of these Translations. Let
+them turn to a forgotten book, by Thomas Heywood, called _Britaines Troy_,
+printed by W. Jaggard in 1609, Fol. and they will find these identical
+Epistles, "which being so pertinent to our Historie," says Heywood, "_I_
+thought necessarie to translate."--How then came they ascribed to
+Shakespeare? We will tell them that likewise. The same voluminous Writer
+published an _Apology for Actors_, 4to. 1612, and in an Appendix directed
+to his new Printer, Nic. Okes, he accuses his old One, Jaggard, of "taking
+the two Epistles of _Paris to Helen_ and _Helen to Paris_, and printing
+them in a less volume and under the name of _Another_:--but _he_ was much
+offended with Master Jaggard, that, altogether unknowne to him, he had
+presumed to make so bold with his Name." In the same work of Heywood are
+all the other Translations which have been printed in the modern Editions
+of the Poems of Shakespeare.
+
+You now hope for land: We have seen through little matters, but what must
+be done with a whole book?--In 1751 was reprinted "A compendious or briefe
+examination of certayne ordinary complaints of diuers of our Countrymen in
+these our days: which although they are in some parte unjust and
+friuolous, yet are they all by way of Dialogue throughly debated and
+discussed by William Shakespeare, Gentleman." 8vo.
+
+This extraordinary piece was originally published in 4to. 1581, and
+dedicated by the Author, "To the most vertuous and learned Lady, his most
+deare and soveraigne Princesse, Elizabeth; being inforced by her Majesties
+late and singular clemency in pardoning certayne his unduetifull
+misdemeanour." And by the modern Editors, to the late King; as "a Treatise
+composed by the most extensive and fertile Genius that ever any age or
+nation produced."
+
+Here we join issue with the Writers of that excellent tho' very unequal
+work, the _Biographia Britannica_: "If," say they, "this piece could be
+written by our Poet, it would be absolutely decisive in the dispute about
+his learning; for many quotations appear in it from the Greek and Latin
+Classicks."
+
+The concurring circumstances of the _Name_ and the _Misdemeanor_, which is
+supposed to be the old Story of _Deer-stealing_, seem fairly to challenge
+our Poet for the Author: but they hesitate.--His claim may appear to be
+confuted by the date 1581, when Shakespeare was only _Seventeen_, and the
+_long_ experience which the Writer talks of.--But I will not keep you in
+suspense: the book was _not_ written by Shakespeare.
+
+Strype, in his _Annals_, calls the Author SOME _learned Man_, and this
+gave me the first suspicion. I knew very well that honest John (to use the
+language of Sir Thomas Bodley) did not waste his time with such _baggage
+books_ as _Plays_ and _Poems_; yet I must suppose that he had heard of the
+name of Shakespeare. After a while I met with the original Edition. Here
+in the Title-page, and at the end of the Dedication, appear only the
+Initials, W. S. Gent., and presently I was informed by Anthony Wood, that
+the book in question was written, not by William Shakespeare, but by
+William Stafford, Gentleman: which at once accounted for the
+_Misdemeanour_ in the Dedication. For Stafford had been concerned at that
+time, and was indeed afterward, as Camden and the other Annalists inform
+us, with some of the conspirators against Elizabeth; which he properly
+calls his _unduetifull_ behaviour.
+
+I hope by this time that any One open to conviction may be nearly
+satisfied; and I will promise to give you on this head very little more
+trouble.
+
+The justly celebrated Mr. Warton hath favoured us, in his _Life of Dr.
+Bathurst_, with some _hearsay_ particulars concerning Shakespeare from the
+papers of Aubrey, which had been in the hands of Wood; and I ought not to
+suppress them, as the _last_ seems to make against my doctrine. They came
+originally, I find, on consulting the MS., from one Mr. Beeston: and I am
+sure Mr. Warton, whom I have the honour to call my Friend, and an
+Associate in the question, will be in no pain about their credit.
+
+"William Shakespeare's Father was a Butcher,--while he was a Boy he
+exercised his Father's trade, but when he killed a Calf, he would do it in
+a high stile, and make a speech. This William being inclined _naturally_
+to Poetry and Acting, came to London, I guess, about _eighteen_, and was
+an Actor in one of the Playhouses, and did act _exceedingly well_. He
+began _early_ to make Essays in dramatique Poetry.--The humour of the
+Constable in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ he happened to take at Crendon
+in Bucks.--I think I have been told that he left near three hundred pounds
+to a _Sister_.--_He understood Latin pretty well, _FOR_ he had been in his
+younger yeares a Schoolmaster in the Country._"
+
+I will be short in my animadversions; and take them in their order.
+
+The account of the _Trade_ of the Family is not only contrary to all other
+Tradition, but, as it may seem, to the instrument from the Herald's
+office, so frequently reprinted.--Shakespeare most certainly went to
+London, and commenced Actor thro' necessity, not natural inclination.--Nor
+have we any reason to suppose that he did act _exceedingly well_. Rowe
+tells us from the information of Betterton, who was inquisitive into this
+point, and had very early opportunities of Inquiry from Sir W. Davenant,
+that he was no _extraordinary Actor_; and that the top of his performance
+was the Ghost in his own _Hamlet_. Yet this _Chef d'Oeuvre_ did not
+please: I will give you an original stroke at it. Dr. Lodge, who was for
+ever pestering the town with Pamphlets, published in the year 1596 _Wits
+miserie, and the Worlds madnesse, discovering the Devils incarnat of this
+Age._ 4to. One of these Devils is _Hate-virtue_, or _Sorrow for another
+mans good successe_, who, says the Doctor, is "_a foule lubber_, and looks
+as pale as the Visard of the Ghost, which cried so miserably at the
+Theatre, like an Oister-wife, _Hamlet revenge_." Thus you see Mr. Holt's
+supposed _proof_, in the Appendix to the late Edition, that _Hamlet_ was
+written after 1597, or perhaps 1602, will by no means hold good; whatever
+might be the case of the particular passage on which it is founded.
+
+Nor does it appear that Shakespeare did begin _early_ to make _Essays in
+Dramatique Poetry_: the _Arraignment of Paris_, 1584, which hath so often
+been ascribed to him on the credit of Kirkman and Winstanley, was written
+by George Peele; and Shakespeare is not met with, even as an Assistant,
+'till at least seven years afterward.--Nash, in his Epistle to the
+Gentlemen Students of both Universities, prefixed to Greene's _Arcadia_,
+4to. _black Letter_, recommends his Friend, Peele, "as the chiefe
+supporter of pleasance now living, the Atlas of Poetrie, and _primus
+Verborum Artifex_: whose first increase, the _Arraignment of Paris_, might
+plead to their opinions his pregnant dexteritie of wit, and manifold
+varietie of inuention."
+
+In the next place, unfortunately, there is neither such a Character as a
+Constable in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_: nor was the _three hundred
+pounds_ Legacy to a Sister, but a Daughter.
+
+And to close the whole, it is not possible, according to Aubrey himself,
+that Shakespeare could have been some _years a Schoolmaster in the
+Country_: on which circumstance only the supposition of his learning is
+professedly founded. He was not surely _very_ young, when he was employed
+to _kill Calves_, and he commenced Player about _Eighteen_!--The truth is
+that he left his Father, for a Wife, a year sooner; and had at least two
+Children born at Stratford before he retired from thence to London. It is
+therefore sufficiently clear that poor Anthony had too much reason for his
+character of Aubrey: You will find it in his own Account of his Life,
+published by Hearne, which I would earnestly recommend to any
+Hypochondriack;
+
+"A pretender to Antiquities, roving, magotie-headed, and sometimes little
+better than crased: and being exceedingly credulous, would stuff his many
+Letters sent to A.W. with _folliries_ and misinformations." p. 577.
+
+Thus much for the Learning of Shakespeare with respect to the ancient
+languages: indulge me with an observation or two on his supposed knowledge
+of the modern ones, and I will promise to release you.
+
+"It is _evident_" we have been told, "that he was not unacquainted with
+the Italian": but let us inquire into the _Evidence_.
+
+Certainly some Italian words and phrases appear in the Works of
+Shakespeare; yet if we had nothing else to observe, their Orthography
+might lead us to suspect them to be not of the Writer's importation. But
+we can go further, and prove this.
+
+When Pistol "cheers up himself with ends of verse," he is only a copy of
+Hanniball Gonsaga, who ranted on yielding himself a Prisoner to an English
+Captain in the Low Countries, as you may read in an old Collection of
+Tales, called _Wits, Fits, and Fancies_,
+
+
+    Si Fortuna me tormenta,
+    Il speranza me contenta.
+
+
+And Sir Richard Hawkins, in his Voyage to the South-Sea, 1593, throws out
+the same jingling Distich on the loss of his Pinnace.
+
+"Master Page, sit; good Master Page, sit; _Proface._ What you want in
+meat, we'll have in drink," says Justice Shallow's _Fac totum_, Davy, in
+the 2d Part of _Henry the fourth_.
+
+_Proface_, Sir Thomas Hanmer observes to be Italian, from _profaccia, much
+good may it do you_. Mr. Johnson rather thinks it a mistake for
+_perforce_. Sir Thomas however is right; yet it is no argument for his
+Author's Italian knowledge.
+
+Old Heywood, the Epigrammatist, addressed his Readers long before,
+
+
+    Readers, reade this thus: for Preface, _Proface_,
+    Much good do it you, the poore repast here, &c.--_Woorkes._ Lond.
+                4to. 1562.
+
+
+And Dekker in his Play, _If it be not good, the Diuel is in it_ (which is
+certainly true, for it is full of Devils), makes Shackle-soule, in the
+character of Friar Rush, tempt his Brethren with "choice of dishes,"
+
+
+    To which _proface_; with blythe lookes sit yee.
+
+
+Nor hath it escaped the quibbling manner of the _Water-poet_, in the title
+of a Poem prefixed to his _Praise of Hempseed_: "A Preamble, Preatrot,
+Preagallop, Preapace, or Preface; and _Proface_, my Masters, if your
+Stomacks serve."
+
+But the Editors are not contented without coining Italian. "_Rivo, says
+the Drunkard_," is an Expression of the _madcap_ Prince of Wales; which
+Sir Thomas Hanmer corrects to _Ribi, Drink away_, or _again_, as it should
+rather be translated. Dr. Warburton accedes to this; and Mr. Johnson hath
+admitted it into his Text; but with an observation, that _Rivo_ might
+possibly be the cant of English Taverns. And so indeed it was: it occurs
+frequently in Marston. Take a quotation from his Comedy of _What you
+will_, 1607:
+
+
+    Musicke, Tobacco, Sacke, and Sleepe,
+    The Tide of Sorrow backward keep:
+    If thou art sad at others fate,
+    _Rivo_ drink deep, give care the mate.
+
+
+In _Love's Labour Lost_, Boyet calls Don Armado,
+
+
+    ----A Spaniard that keeps here in Court,
+    A Phantasme, a _Monarcho_.----
+
+
+Here too Sir Thomas is willing to palm Italian upon us. We should read, it
+seems, _Mammuccio_, a Mammet, or Puppet: Ital. _Mammuccia_. But the
+allusion is to a fantastical _Character_ of the time.--"Popular applause,"
+says Meres, "dooth nourish some, neither do they gape after any other
+thing, but vaine praise and glorie,--as in our age Peter Shakerlye of
+Paules, and MONARCHO that liued about the Court." p. 178.
+
+I fancy you will be satisfied with one more instance.
+
+"_Baccare_, You are marvellous forward," quoth Gremio to Petruchio in the
+_Taming of the Shrew_.
+
+"But not so _forward_," says Mr. Theobald, "as our Editors are _indolent_.
+This is a stupid corruption of the press, that none of them have dived
+into. We must read _Baccalare_, as Mr. Warburton acutely observed to me,
+by which the Italians mean, Thou ignorant, presumptuous Man."--"Properly
+indeed," adds Mr. Heath, "a _graduated_ Scholar, but ironically and
+sarcastically a _pretender_ to Scholarship."
+
+This is admitted by the Editors and Criticks of every Denomination. Yet
+the word is neither wrong, nor Italian: it was an old proverbial one, used
+frequently by John Heywood; who hath made, what he pleases to call,
+_Epigrams_ upon it.
+
+Take two of them, such as they are,
+
+
+    _Backare_, quoth Mortimer to his Sow:
+    Went that Sow _backe_ at that biddyng trowe you?
+
+    _Backare_, quoth Mortimer to his sow: se
+    Mortimers sow speakth as good _latin_ as he.
+
+
+Howel takes this from Heywood, in his _Old Sawes and Adages_: and Philpot
+introduces it into the Proverbs collected by Camden.
+
+We have but few observations concerning Shakespeare's knowledge of the
+Spanish tongue. Dr. Grey indeed is willing to suppose that the plot of
+_Romeo and Juliet_ may be borrowed from a COMEDY of Lopes de Vega. But the
+Spaniard, who was certainly acquainted with Bandello, hath not only
+changed the Catastrophe, but the names of the Characters. Neither Romeo
+nor Juliet, neither Montague nor Capulet, appears in this performance: and
+how came they to the knowledge of Shakespeare?--Nothing is more certain
+than that he chiefly followed the Translation by Painter from the French
+of Boisteau, and hence arise the Deviations from Bandello's original
+Italian. It seems, however, from a passage in Ames's _Typographical
+Antiquities_, that Painter was not the only Translator of this popular
+Story: and it is possible, therefore, that Shakespeare might have other
+assistance.
+
+In the Induction to the _Taming of the Shrew_, the Tinker attempts to talk
+Spanish: and _consequently_ the Author himself was acquainted with it.
+
+
+    _Paucas pallabris_, let the World slide, _Sessa_.
+
+
+But this is a burlesque on _Hieronymo_; the piece of Bombast that I have
+mentioned to you before:
+
+
+    What new device have they devised, trow?
+    _Pocas pallabras_, &c.----
+
+
+Mr. Whalley tells us, "the Author of this piece hath the happiness to be
+at this time unknown, the remembrance of him having perished with
+himself": Philips and others ascribe it to one William Smith: but I take
+this opportunity of informing him that it was written by Thomas Kyd; if he
+will accept the authority of his Contemporary, Heywood.
+
+More hath been said concerning Shakespeare's acquaintance with the French
+language. In the Play of _Henry the fifth_, we have a whole Scene in it,
+and in other places it occurs familiarly in the Dialogue.
+
+We may observe in general, that the early Editions have not half the
+quantity; and every sentence, or rather every word, most ridiculously
+blundered. These, for several reasons, could not possibly be published by
+the Author; and it is extremely probable that the French ribaldry was at
+first inserted by a different hand, as the many additions most certainly
+were after he had left the Stage.--Indeed, every friend to his memory will
+not easily believe that he was acquainted with the Scene between Catharine
+and the old Gentlewoman; or surely he would not have admitted such
+obscenity and nonsense.
+
+Mr. Hawkins, in the Appendix to Mr. Johnson's Edition, hath an ingenious
+observation to prove that Shakespeare, supposing the French to be his, had
+very little knowledge of the language.
+
+"Est-il impossible d'eschapper la force de ton _Bras_?" says a
+Frenchman.--"_Brass_, cur?" replies Pistol.
+
+"Almost any one knows that the French word _Bras_ is pronounced _Brau_;
+and what resemblance of sound does this bear to _Brass_?"
+
+Mr. Johnson makes a doubt whether the pronunciation of the French language
+may not be changed since Shakespeare's time; "if not," says he, "it may be
+suspected that some other man wrote the French scenes": but this does not
+appear to be the case, at least in this termination, from the rules of the
+Grammarians, or the practice of the Poets. I am certain of the former from
+the _French Alphabet_ of De la Mothe, and the _Orthoepia Gallica_ of John
+Eliot; and of the latter from the Rhymes of Marot, Ronsard, and Du
+Bartas.--Connections of this kind were very common. Shakespeare himself
+assisted Ben. Jonson in his _Sejanus_, as it was originally written; and
+Fletcher in his _Two noble Kinsmen_.
+
+But what if the French scene were occasionally introduced into every Play
+on this Subject? and perhaps there were more than one before our
+Poet's.--In _Pierce __ Penilesse his Supplication to the Diuell_, 4to. 1592
+(which, it seems, from the Epistle to the Printer, was not the first
+Edition), the Author, Nash, exclaims, "What a glorious thing it is to have
+_Henry the fifth_ represented on the Stage leading the French King
+prisoner, and forcing both him and the Dolphin to sweare fealty!"--And it
+appears from the Jests of the famous Comedian, Tarlton, 4to. 1611, that he
+had been particularly celebrated in the Part of the Clown in _Henry the
+fifth_; but no such Character exists in the Play of Shakespeare.--_Henry
+the sixth_ hath ever been doubted; and a passage in the above-quoted piece
+of Nash may give us reason to believe it was previous to our Author. "How
+would it have joyed braue Talbot (the terror of the French) to thinke that
+after he had lyen two hundred yeare in his Toomb, he should triumph again
+on the Stage; and haue his bones new embalmed with the teares of ten
+thousand spectators at least (at severall times) who, in the Tragedian
+that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding."--I
+have no doubt but _Henry the sixth_ had the same Author with _Edward the
+third_, which hath been recovered to the world in Mr. Capell's
+_Prolusions_.
+
+It hath been observed that the Giant of Rabelais is sometimes alluded to
+by Shakespeare: and in _his_ time no translation was extant.--But the Story
+was in every one's hand.
+
+In a Letter by one Laneham, or Langham, for the name is written
+differently, concerning the Entertainment at Killingwoorth Castle, printed
+1575, we have a list of the vulgar Romances of the age, "King Arthurz
+book, Huon of Burdeaus, Friar Rous, Howleglass, and GARGANTUA." Meres
+mentions him as equally hurtful to young minds with the _Four Sons of
+Aymon_, and the _Seven Champions_. And John Taylor hath him likewise in
+his catalogue of _Authors_, prefixed to Sir _Gregory Nonsence_.
+
+But to come to a conclusion, I will give you an irrefragable argument that
+Shakespeare did _not_ understand _two_ very common words in the French and
+Latin languages.
+
+According to the Articles of agreement between the Conqueror Henry and the
+King of France, the latter was to stile the former (in the corrected
+French of the modern Editions) "Nostre _tres cher_ filz Henry Roy
+d'Angleterre; and in Latin, _Præclarissimus_ Filius, &c." "What," says Dr.
+Warburton, "is _tres cher_ in French _præclarissimus_ in Latin! we should
+read _præcarissimus_."--This appears to be exceedingly true; but how came
+the blunder? It is a typographical one in Holingshed, which Shakespeare
+copied; but must indisputably have corrected, had he been acquainted with
+the languages.--"Our said Father, during his life, shall name, call, and
+write us in French in this maner: Nostre _tres chier_ filz, Henry Roy
+d'Engleterre--and in Latine in this maner: _Præclarissimus_ filius noster."
+Edit. 1587, p. 574.
+
+To corroborate this instance, let me observe to you, though it be nothing
+further to the purpose, that another error of the same kind hath been the
+source of a mistake in an historical passage of our Author; which hath
+ridiculously troubled the Criticks.
+
+Richard the third harangues his army before the Battle of Bosworth:
+
+
+    Remember whom ye are to cope withal,
+    A sort of vagabonds, of rascals, runaways--
+    And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,
+    Long kept in _Britaine_ at _our Mother's_ cost,
+    A milksop, &c.--
+
+
+"_Our_ Mother," Mr. Theobald perceives to be wrong, and Henry was
+somewhere secreted on the _Continent_: he reads therefore, and all the
+Editors after him,
+
+
+    Long kept in _Bretagne_ at _his_ mother's cost.
+
+
+But give me leave to transcribe a few more lines from Holingshed, and you
+will find at once that Shakespeare had been there before me:--"Ye see
+further, how a companie of traitors, theeves, outlaws, and runnagates be
+aiders and partakers of his feat and enterprise.--And to begin with the
+erle of Richmond, captaine of this rebellion, he is a Welsh
+milksop--brought up by _my Moother's_ meanes and mine, like a captive in a
+close cage, in the court of Francis duke of _Britaine_." p. 756.
+
+Holingshed copies this _verbatim_ from his brother chronicler Hall, Edit.
+1548, fol. 54; but his Printer hath given us by accident the word
+_Moother_ instead of _Brother_; as it is in the Original, and ought to be
+in Shakespeare.
+
+I hope, my good Friend, you have by this time acquitted our great Poet of
+all piratical depredations on the Ancients, and are ready to receive my
+_Conclusion_.--He remembered perhaps enough of his _school-boy_ learning to
+put the _Hig_, _hag_, _hog_, into the mouth of Sir Hugh Evans; and might
+pick up in the Writers of the time, or the course of his conversation, a
+familiar phrase or two of French or Italian: but his _Studies_ were most
+demonstratively confined to _Nature_ and _his own Language_.
+
+In the course of this disquisition, you have often smiled at "all such
+reading as was never read": and possibly I may have indulged it too far:
+but it is the reading necessary for a Comment on Shakespeare. Those who
+apply solely to the Ancients for this purpose, may with equal wisdom study
+the TALMUD for an Exposition of TRISTRAM SHANDY. Nothing but an intimate
+acquaintance with the Writers of the time, who are frequently of no other
+value, can point out his allusions, and ascertain his Phraseology. The
+Reformers of his Text are for ever equally positive, and equally wrong.
+The Cant of the Age, a provincial Expression, an obscure Proverb, an
+obsolete Custom, a Hint at a Person or a Fact no longer remembered, hath
+continually defeated the best of our _Guessers_: You must not suppose me
+to speak at random, when I assure you that, from some forgotten book or
+other, I can demonstrate this to you in many hundred Places; and I almost
+wish that I had not been persuaded into a different Employment.
+
+Tho' I have as much of the _Natale Solum_ about me as any man whatsoever;
+yet, I own, the _Primrose Path_ is still more pleasing than the _Fosse_ or
+the _Watling Street_:
+
+
+    Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale
+    It's infinite variety.----
+
+
+And when I am fairly rid of the Dust of topographical Antiquity, which
+hath continued much longer about me than I expected, you may very probably
+be troubled again with the ever fruitful Subject of SHAKESPEARE and his
+COMMENTATORS.
+
+
+
+
+
+MAURICE MORGANN: AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMATIC CHARACTER OF SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.
+1777.
+
+
+
+
+Preface.
+
+
+The following sheets were written in consequence of a friendly
+conversation, turning by some chance upon the Character of FALSTAFF,
+wherein the Writer, maintaining, contrary to the general Opinion, that
+this Character was not intended to be shewn as a Coward, he was challenged
+to deliver and support that Opinion from the Press, with an engagement,
+now he fears forgotten, for it was three years ago, that he should be
+answered thro' the same channel: Thus stimulated, these papers were almost
+wholly written in a very short time, but not without those attentions,
+whether successful or not, which seemed necessary to carry them beyond the
+Press into the hands of the Public. From the influence of the foregoing
+circumstances it is, that the Writer has generally assumed rather the
+character and tone of an Advocate than of an Inquirer;--though if he had
+not first _inquired_ and been _convinced_, he should never have attempted
+to have amused either himself or others with the subject.--The impulse of
+the occasion, however, being passed, the papers were thrown by, and almost
+forgotten: But having been looked into of late by some friends, who,
+observing that the Writer had not enlarged so far for the sake of FALSTAFF
+alone, but that the Argument was made subservient to Critical amusement,
+persuaded him to revise and convey it to the Press. This has been
+accordingly done, though he fears something too hastily, as he found it
+proper to add, while the papers were in the course of printing, some
+considerations on the _Whole_ Character of FALSTAFF; which ought to have
+been accompanied by a slight reform of a few preceding passages, which may
+seem, in consequence of this addition, to contain too favourable a
+representation of his Morals.
+
+The vindication of FALSTAFF'S Courage is truly no otherwise the object
+than some old fantastic Oak, or grotesque Rock, may be the object of a
+morning's ride; yet being proposed as such, may serve to limit the
+distance, and shape the course: The real object is Exercise, and the
+Delight which a rich, beautiful, picturesque, and perhaps unknown Country,
+may excite from every side. Such an Exercise may admit of some little
+excursion, keeping however the Road in view; but seems to exclude every
+appearance of labour and of toil.--Under the impression of such Feelings,
+the Writer has endeavoured to preserve to his Text a certain lightness of
+air, and chearfulness of tone; but is sensible, however, that the manner
+of discussion does not _every where_, particularly near the commencement,
+sufficiently correspond with his design.--If the Book shall be fortunate
+enough to obtain another Impression, a separation may be made; and such of
+the heavier parts as cannot be wholly dispensed with, sink to their more
+proper station,--a Note.
+
+He is fearful likewise that he may have erred in the other extreme; and
+that having thought himself intitled, even in argument, to a certain
+degree of playful discussion, may have pushed it, in a few places, even to
+levity. This error might be yet more easily reformed than the other.--The
+Book is perhaps, as it stands, too bulky for the subject; but if the
+Reader knew how many pressing considerations, as it grew into size, the
+Author resisted, which yet seemed intitled to be heard, he would the more
+readily excuse him.
+
+The whole is a mere Experiment, and the Writer considers it as such: It
+may have the advantages, but it is likewise attended with all the
+difficulties and dangers, of _Novelty_.
+
+
+
+
+On The Dramatic Character Of Sir John Falstaff.
+
+
+The ideas which I have formed concerning the Courage and Military
+Character of the Dramatic Sir _John Falstaff_ are so different from those
+which I find generally to prevail in the world, that I shall take the
+liberty of stating my sentiments on the subject; in hope that some person,
+as unengaged as myself, will either correct and reform my error in this
+respect; or, joining himself to my opinion, redeem me from, what I may
+call, the reproach of singularity.
+
+I am to avow, then, that I do not clearly discern that Sir _John Falstaff_
+deserves to bear the character so generally given him of an absolute
+Coward; or, in other words, that I do not conceive _Shakespeare_ ever
+meant to make Cowardice an essential part of his constitution.
+
+I know how universally the contrary opinion prevails; and I know what
+respect and deference are due to the public voice. But if to the avowal of
+this singularity I add all the reasons that have led me to it, and
+acknowledge myself to be wholly in the judgment of the public, I shall
+hope to avoid the censure of too much forwardness or indecorum.
+
+It must, in the first place, be admitted that the appearances in this case
+are singularly strong and striking; and so they had need be, to become the
+ground of so general a censure. We see this extraordinary Character,
+almost in the first moment of our acquaintance with him, involved in
+circumstances of apparent dishonour; and we hear him familiarly called
+_Coward_ by his most intimate companions. We see him, on occasion of the
+robbery at _Gads-Hill_, in the very act of running away from the Prince
+and _Poins_; and we behold him, on another of more honourable obligation,
+in open day light, in battle, and acting in his profession as a Soldier,
+escaping from _Douglas_ even out of the world as it were; counterfeiting
+death, and deserting his very existence; and we find him, on the former
+occasion, betrayed into those _lies_ and _braggadocioes_ which are the
+usual concomitants of Cowardice in Military men, and pretenders to valour.
+These are not only in themselves strong circumstances, but they are
+moreover thrust forward, prest upon our notice as the subject of our
+mirth, as the great business of the scene: No wonder, therefore, that the
+word should go forth that _Falstaff_ exhibited as a character of Cowardice
+and dishonour.
+
+What there is to the contrary of this, it is my business to discover.
+Much, I think, will presently appear; but it lies so dispersed, is so
+latent, and so purposely obscured, that the reader must have some patience
+whilst I collect it into one body, and make it the object of a steady and
+regular contemplation.
+
+But what have we to do, may my readers exclaim, with principles _so
+latent_, _so obscured_? In Dramatic composition the _Impression_ is the
+_Fact_; and the Writer, who, meaning to impress one thing, has impressed
+another, is unworthy of observation.
+
+It is a very unpleasant thing to have, in the first setting out, so many
+and so strong prejudices to contend with. All that one can do in such
+case, is, to pray the reader to have a little patience in the
+commencement; and to reserve his censure, if it must pass, for the
+conclusion. Under his gracious allowance, therefore, I presume to declare
+it as my opinion, that Cowardice _is not_ the _Impression_ which the
+_whole_ character of _Falstaff_ is calculated to make on the minds of an
+unprejudiced audience; tho' there be, I confess, a great deal of something
+in the _composition_ likely enough to puzzle, and consequently to mislead
+the Understanding.--The reader will perceive that I distinguish between
+_mental Impressions_ and the _Understanding_.--I wish to avoid every thing
+that looks like subtlety and refinement; but this is a distinction which
+we all comprehend.--There are none of us unconscious of certain feelings or
+sensations of mind which do not seem to have passed thro' the
+Understanding; the effects, I suppose, of some secret influences from
+without, acting upon a certain mental sense, and producing feelings and
+passions in just correspondence to the force and variety of those
+influences on the one hand, and to the quickness of our sensibility on the
+other. Be the cause, however, what it may, the fact is undoubtedly so;
+which is all I am concerned in. And it is equally a fact, which every
+man's experience may avouch, that the Understanding and those feelings are
+frequently at variance. The latter often arise from the most minute
+circumstances, and frequently from such as the Understanding cannot
+estimate, or even recognize; whereas the Understanding delights in
+abstraction, and in general propositions; which, however true considered
+as such, are very seldom, I had like to have said _never_, perfectly
+applicable to any particular case. And hence, among other causes, it is,
+that we often condemn or applaud characters and actions on the credit of
+some logical process, while our hearts revolt, and would fain lead us to a
+very different conclusion.
+
+The Understanding seems for the most part to take cognizance of _actions_
+only, and from these to infer _motives_ and _character_; but the sense we
+have been speaking of proceeds in a contrary course; and determines of
+_actions_ from certain _first principles of character_, which seem wholly
+out of the reach of the Understanding. We cannot indeed do otherwise than
+admit that there must be distinct principles of character in every
+distinct individual: The manifest variety even in the minds of infants
+will oblige us to this. But what _are_ these first principles of
+character? Not the objects, I am persuaded, of the Understanding; and yet
+we take as strong Impressions of them as if we could compare and assort
+them in a syllogism. We often love or hate at first sight; and indeed, in
+general, dislike or approve by some secret reference to these
+_principles_; and we judge even of conduct, not from any idea of abstract
+good or evil in the nature of actions, but by referring those actions to a
+supposed original character in the man himself. I do not mean that we
+_talk_ thus; we could not indeed, if we would, explain ourselves in detail
+on this head; we can neither account for Impressions and passions, nor
+communicate them to others by _words_: Tones and looks will sometimes
+convey the _passion_ strangely, but the _Impression_ is incommunicable.
+The same causes may produce it indeed at the same time in many, but it is
+the separate possession of each, and not in its nature transferable: It is
+an imperfect sort of instinct, and proportionably dumb.--We might indeed,
+if we chose it, candidly confess to one another that we are greatly swayed
+by these feelings, and are by no means so _rational_ in all points as we
+could wish; but this would be a betraying of the interests of that high
+faculty, the Understanding, which we so value ourselves upon, and which we
+more peculiarly call our own. This, we think, must not be; and so we
+huddle up the matter, concealing it as much as possible, both from
+ourselves and others. In Books indeed, wherein character, motive, and
+action, are all alike subjected to the Understanding, it is generally a
+very clear case; and we make decisions compounded of them all: And thus we
+are willing to approve of _Candide_, tho' he kills my Lord the Inquisitor,
+and runs thro' the body the Baron of _Thunder-ten-tronckh_, the son of his
+patron, and the brother of his beloved _Cunégonde_: But in real life, I
+believe, _my Lords the Judges_ would be apt to inform the _Gentlemen of
+the Jury_ that my _Lord the Inquisitor_ was _ill killed_; as _Candide_ did
+not proceed on the urgency of the moment, but on the speculation only of
+future evil. And indeed this clear perception, in Novels and Plays, of the
+union of character and action not seen in nature, is the principal defect
+of such compositions, and what renders them but ill pictures of human
+life, and wretched guides of conduct.
+
+But if there was _one man_ in the world who could make a more perfect
+draught of real nature, and steal such Impressions on his audience,
+without their special notice, as should keep their hold in spite of any
+error of their Understanding, and should thereupon venture to introduce an
+apparent incongruity of character and action, for ends which I shall
+presently endeavour to explain; such an imitation would be worth our
+nicest curiosity and attention. But in such a case as this, the reader
+might expect that he should find us all talking the language of the
+Understanding only; that is, censuring the action with very little
+conscientious investigation even of _that_; and transferring the censure,
+in every odious colour, to the actor himself; how much soever our hearts
+and affections might secretly revolt: For as to the _Impression_, we have
+already observed that it has no tongue; nor is its operation and influence
+likely to be made the subject of conference and communication.
+
+It is not to the _Courage_ only of _Falstaff_ that we think these
+observations will apply: No part whatever of his character seems to be
+fully settled in our minds; at least there is something strangely
+incongruous in our discourse and affections concerning him. We all like
+_Old Jack_; yet, by some strange perverse fate, we all abuse him, and deny
+him the possession of any one single good or respectable quality. There is
+something extraordinary in this: It must be a strange art in _Shakespeare_
+which can draw our liking and good will towards so offensive an object. He
+has wit, it will be said; chearfulness and humour of the most
+characteristic and captivating sort. And is this enough? Is the humour and
+gaiety of vice so very captivating? Is the wit, characteristic of baseness
+and every ill quality, capable of attaching the heart and winning the
+affections? Or does not the apparency of such humour, and the flashes of
+such wit, by more strongly disclosing the deformity of character, but the
+more effectually excite our hatred and contempt of the man? And yet this
+is not our _feeling_ of _Falstaff_'s character. When he has ceased to
+amuse us, we find no emotions of disgust; we can scarcely forgive the
+ingratitude of the Prince in the new-born virtue of the King, and we curse
+the severity of that poetic justice which consigns our old good-natured
+companion to the custody of the _warden_, and the dishonours of the
+_Fleet_.
+
+I am willing, however, to admit that if a Dramatic writer will but
+preserve to any character the qualities of a strong mind, particularly
+Courage and ability, that it will be afterwards no very difficult task (as
+I may have occasion to explain) to discharge that _disgust_ which arises
+from vicious manners; and even to attach us (if such character should
+contain any quality productive of chearfulness and laughter) to the cause
+and subject of our mirth with some degree of affection.
+
+But the question which I am to consider is of a very different nature: It
+is a question of fact, and concerning a quality which forms the basis of
+every respectable character; a quality which is the very essence of a
+Military man; and which is held up to us, in almost every Comic incident
+of the Play, as the subject of our observation. It is strange then that it
+should now be a question, whether _Falstaff_ is or is not a man of
+Courage; and whether we do in fact contemn him for the want, or respect
+him for the possession of that quality: And yet I believe the reader will
+find that he has by no means decided this question, even for himself.--If
+then it should turn out that this difficulty has arisen out of the Art of
+_Shakespeare_, who has contrived to make secret Impressions upon us of
+Courage, and to preserve those Impressions in favour of a character which
+was to be held up for sport and laughter on account of actions of apparent
+Cowardice and dishonour, we shall have less occasion to wonder, as
+_Shakespeare_ is a Name which contains All of Dramatic artifice and
+genius.
+
+If in this place the reader shall peevishly and prematurely object that
+the observations and distinctions I have laboured to establish are wholly
+unapplicable; he being himself unconscious of ever having received any
+such Impression; what can be done in so nice a case, but to refer him to
+the following pages; by the number of which he may judge how very much I
+respect his objection, and by the variety of those proofs which I shall
+employ to induce him to part with it; and to recognize in its stead
+certain feelings, concealed and covered over perhaps, but not erazed, by
+time, reasoning, and authority?
+
+In the mean while, it may not perhaps be easy for him to resolve how it
+comes about, that, whilst we look upon _Falstaff_ as a character of the
+like nature with that of _Parolles_ or of _Bobadil_, we should preserve
+for him a great degree of respect and good-will, and yet feel the highest
+disdain and contempt of the others, tho' they are all involved in similar
+situations. The reader, I believe, would wonder extremely to find either
+_Parolles_ or _Bobadil_ possess himself in danger: What then can be the
+cause that we are not at all surprized at the gaiety and ease of
+_Falstaff_ under the most trying circumstances; and that we never think of
+charging _Shakespeare_ with departing, on this account, from the truth and
+coherence of character? Perhaps, after all, the _real_ character of
+_Falstaff_ may be different from his _apparent_ one; and possibly this
+difference between reality and appearance, whilst it accounts at once for
+our liking and our censure, may be the true point of humour in the
+character, and the source of all our laughter and delight. We may chance
+to find, if we will but examine a little into the nature of those
+circumstances which have accidentally involved him, that he was intended
+to be drawn as a character of much Natural courage and resolution; and be
+obliged thereupon to repeal those decisions which may have been made upon
+the credit of some general tho' unapplicable propositions; the common
+source of error in other and higher matters. A little reflection may
+perhaps bring us round again to the point of our departure, and unite our
+Understandings to our instinct.--Let us then for a moment _suspend_ at
+least our decisions, and candidly and coolly inquire if Sir _John
+Falstaff_ be, indeed, what he has so often been called by critic and
+commentator, male and female,--a _Constitutional Coward_.
+
+It will scarcely be possible to consider the Courage of _Falstaff_ as
+wholly detached from his other qualities: But I write not professedly of
+any part of his character, but what is included under the term, _Courage_;
+however, I may incidentally throw some lights on the whole.--The reader
+will not need to be told that this Inquiry will resolve itself of course
+into a Critique on the genius, the arts, and the conduct of _Shakespeare_:
+For what is _Falstaff_, what _Lear_, what _Hamlet_, or _Othello_, but
+different modifications of _Shakespeare_'s thought? It is true that this
+Inquiry is narrowed almost to a single point: But general criticism is as
+uninstructive as it is easy: _Shakespeare_ deserves to be considered in
+detail;--a task hitherto unattempted.
+
+It may be proper, in the first place, to take a short view of all the
+parts of _Falstaff_'s Character, and then proceed to discover, if we can,
+what _Impressions_, as to Courage or Cowardice, he had made on the persons
+of the Drama: After which we will examine, in course, such evidence,
+either of _persons_ or _facts_, as are relative to the matter; and account
+as we may for those appearances which seem to have led to the opinion of
+his Constitutional Cowardice.
+
+The scene of the robbery, and the disgraces attending it, which stand
+first in the Play, and introduce us to the knowledge of _Falstaff_, I
+shall beg leave (as I think this scene to have been the source of much
+unreasonable prejudice) to _reserve_ till we are more fully acquainted
+with the whole character of _Falstaff_; and I shall therefore hope that
+the reader will not for a time advert to it, or to the jests of the Prince
+or of _Poins_ in consequence of that unlucky adventure.
+
+In drawing out the parts of _Falstaff_'s character, with which I shall
+begin this Inquiry, I shall take the liberty of putting Constitutional
+bravery into his composition; but the reader will be pleased to consider
+what I shall say in that respect as spoken hypothetically for the present,
+to be retained, or discharged out of it, as he shall finally determine.
+
+To me then it appears that the leading quality in _Falstaff_'s character,
+and that from which all the rest take their colour, is a high degree of
+wit and humour, accompanied with great natural vigour and alacrity of
+mind. This quality, so accompanied, led him probably very early into life,
+and made him highly acceptable to society; so acceptable, as to make it
+seem unnecessary for him to acquire any other virtue. Hence, perhaps, his
+continued debaucheries and dissipations of every kind.--He seems, by
+nature, to have had a mind free of malice or any evil principle; but he
+never took the trouble of acquiring any good one. He found himself
+esteemed and beloved with all his faults; nay _for_ his faults, which were
+all connected with humour, and for the most part grew out of it. As he
+had, possibly, no vices but such as he thought might be openly professed,
+so he appeared more dissolute thro' ostentation. To the character of wit
+and humour, to which all his other qualities seem to have conformed
+themselves, he appears to have added a very necessary support, _that_ of
+the profession of a _Soldier_. He had from nature, as I presume to say, a
+spirit of boldness and enterprise; which in a Military age, tho'
+employment was only occasional, kept him always above contempt, secured
+him an honourable reception among the Great, and suited best both his
+particular mode of humour and of vice. Thus living continually in society,
+nay even in Taverns, and indulging himself, and being indulged by others,
+in every debauchery; drinking, whoring, gluttony, and ease; assuming a
+liberty of fiction, necessary perhaps to his wit, and often falling into
+falsity and lies, he seems to have set, by degrees, all sober reputation
+at defiance; and finding eternal resources in his wit, he borrows, shifts,
+defrauds, and even robs, without dishonour.--Laughter and approbation
+attend his greatest excesses; and being governed visibly by no settled bad
+principle or ill design, fun and humour account for and cover all. By
+degrees, however, and thro' indulgence, he acquires bad habits, becomes an
+humourist, grows enormously corpulent, and falls into the infirmities of
+age; yet never quits, all the time, one single levity or vice of youth, or
+loses any of that chearfulness of mind which had enabled him to pass thro'
+this course with ease to himself and delight to others; and thus, at last,
+mixing youth and age, enterprize and corpulency, wit and folly, poverty
+and expence, title and buffoonery, innocence as to purpose, and wickedness
+as to practice; neither incurring hatred by bad principle, or contempt by
+Cowardice, yet involved in circumstances productive of imputation in both;
+a butt and a wit, a humourist and a man of humour, a touchstone and a
+laughing stock, a jester and a jest, has Sir _John Falstaff_, taken at
+that period of his life in which we see him, become the most perfect Comic
+character that perhaps ever was exhibited.
+
+It may not possibly be wholly amiss to remark in this place, that if Sir
+_John Falstaff_ had possessed any of that Cardinal quality, Prudence,
+alike the guardian of virtue and the protector of vice; that quality, from
+the possession or the absence of which, the character and fate of men in
+this life take, I think, their colour, and not from real vice or virtue;
+if he had considered his wit not as _principal_ but _accessary_ only; as
+the instrument of power, and not as power itself; if he had had much
+baseness to hide, if he had had less of what may be called mellowness or
+good humour, or less of health and spirit; if he had spurred and rode the
+world with his wit, instead of suffering the world, boys and all, to ride
+him;--he might, without any other essential change, have been the
+admiration and not the jest of mankind:--Or if he had lived in our day, and
+instead of attaching himself to one Prince, had renounced _all_ friendship
+and _all_ attachment, and had let himself out as the ready instrument and
+Zany of every successive Minister, he might possibly have acquired the
+high honour of marking his shroud or decorating his coffin with the living
+rays of an Irish at least, if not a British Coronet: Instead of which,
+tho' enforcing laughter from every disposition, he appears, now, as such a
+character which every wise man will pity and avoid, every knave will
+censure, and every fool will fear: And accordingly _Shakespeare_, ever
+true to nature, has made _Harry_ desert, and _Lancaster_ censure him:--He
+dies where he lived, in a Tavern, broken-hearted, without a friend; and
+his final exit is given up to the derision of fools. Nor has his
+misfortunes ended here; the scandal arising from the misapplication of his
+wit and talents seems immortal. He has met with as little justice or mercy
+from his final judges the critics, as from his companions of the Drama.
+With our cheeks still red with laughter, we ungratefully as unjustly
+censure him as a coward by nature, and a rascal upon principle: Tho', if
+this were so, it might be hoped, for our own credit, that we should behold
+him rather with disgust and disapprobation than with pleasure and delight.
+
+But to remember our question--_Is Falstaff a constitutional coward?_
+
+With respect to every infirmity, except that of Cowardice, we must take
+him as at the period in which he is represented to us. If we see him
+dissipated, fat,--it is enough;--we have nothing to do with his youth, when
+he might perhaps have been modest, chaste, "_and not an Eagle's talon in
+the waist_." But _Constitutional __ Courage_ extends to a man's whole
+life, makes a part of his nature, and is not to be taken up or deserted
+like a mere Moral quality. It is true, there is a Courage founded upon
+_principle_, or rather a principle independent of Courage, which will
+sometimes operate in spite of nature; a principle which prefers death to
+shame, but which always refers itself, in conformity to its own nature, to
+the prevailing modes of honour, and the fashions of the age.--But Natural
+courage is another thing: It is independent of opinion; It adapts itself
+to occasions, preserves itself under every shape, and can avail itself of
+flight as well as of action.--In the last war, some Indians of America
+perceiving a line of Highlanders to keep their station under every
+disadvantage, and under a fire which they could not effectually return,
+were so miserably mistaken in our points of honour as to conjecture, from
+observation on the habit and stability of those troops, that they were
+indeed the women of England, who wanted courage to run away.--That Courage
+which is founded in nature and constitution, _Falstaff_, as I presume to
+say, possessed;--but I am ready to allow that the principle already
+mentioned, so far as it refers to reputation only, began with every other
+Moral quality to lose its hold on him in his old age; that is, at the time
+of life in which he is represented to us; a period, as it should seem,
+approaching to _seventy_.--The truth is that he had drollery enough to
+support himself in credit without the point of honour, and had address
+enough to make even the preservation of his life a point of drollery. The
+reader knows I allude, tho' something prematurely, to his fictitious death
+in the battle of Shrewsbury. This incident is generally construed to the
+disadvantage of _Falstaff_: It is a transaction which bears the external
+marks of Cowardice: It is also aggravated to the spectators by the idle
+tricks of the Player, who practises on this occasion all the attitudes and
+wild apprehensions of fear; more ambitious, as it should seem, of
+representing a _Caliban_ than a _Falstaff_; or indeed rather a poor
+unwieldy miserable Tortoise than either.--The painful Comedian lies spread
+out on his belly, and not only covers himself all over with his robe as
+with a shell, but forms a kind of round Tortoise-back by I know not what
+stuffing or contrivance; in addition to which, he alternately lifts up,
+and depresses, and dodges his head, and looks to the one side and to the
+other, so much with the piteous aspect of that animal, that one would not
+be sorry to see the ambitious imitator calipashed in his robe, and served
+up for the entertainment of the gallery.--There is no hint for this mummery
+in the Play: Whatever there may be of dishonour in _Falstaff_'s conduct,
+he neither does or says any thing on this occasion which indicates terror
+or disorder of mind: On the contrary, this very act is a proof of his
+having all his wits about him, and is a stratagem, such as it is, not
+improper for a buffoon, whose fate would be singularly hard, if he should
+not be allowed to avail himself of his Character when it might serve him
+in most stead. We must remember, in extenuation, that the executive, the
+destroying hand of _Douglas_ was over him: "_It was time to counterfeit,
+or that hot termagant Scot had paid him scot and lot too._" He had but one
+choice; he was obliged to pass thro' the ceremony of dying either in jest
+or in earnest; and we shall not be surprized at the event, when we
+remember his propensities to the former.--Life (and especially the life of
+_Falstaff_) might be a jest; but he could see no joke whatever in dying:
+To be chopfallen was, with him, to lose both life and character together:
+He saw the point of honour, as well as every thing else, in ridiculous
+lights, and began to renounce its tyranny.
+
+But I am too much in advance, and must retreat for more advantage. I
+should not forget how much opinion is against me, and that I am to make my
+way by the mere force and weight of evidence; without which I must not
+hope to possess myself of the reader: No address, no insinuation will
+avail. To this evidence, then, I now resort. The Courage of _Falstaff_ is
+my Theme: And no passage will I spare from which any thing can be inferred
+as relative to this point. It would be as vain as injudicious to attempt
+concealment: How could I escape detection? The Play is in every one's
+memory, and a single passage remembered in detection would tell, in the
+mind of the partial observer, for fifty times its real weight. Indeed this
+argument would be void of all excuse if it declined any difficulty; if it
+did not meet, if it did not challenge opposition. Every passage then shall
+be produced from which, in my opinion, any inference, favourable or
+unfavourable, has or can be drawn;--but not methodically, not formally, as
+texts for comment, but as chance or convenience shall lead the way; but in
+what shape soever, they shall be always distinguishingly marked for
+notice. And so with that attention to truth and candour which ought to
+accompany even our lightest amusements I proceed to offer such proof as
+the case will admit, that _Courage_ is a part of _Falstaff_'s _Character_,
+that it belonged to his constitution, and was manifest in the conduct and
+practice of his whole life.
+
+Let us then examine, as a source of very authentic information, what
+Impressions _Sir John Falstaff_ had made on the characters of the Drama;
+and in what estimation he is supposed to stand with mankind in general as
+to the point of Personal Courage. But the quotations we make for this or
+other purposes, must, it is confessed, be lightly touched, and no
+particular passage strongly relied on, either in his favour or against
+him. Every thing which he himself says, or is said of him, is so
+phantastically discoloured by humour, or folly, or jest, that we must for
+the most part look to the spirit rather than the letter of what is
+uttered, and rely at last only on a combination of the whole.
+
+We will begin then, if the reader pleases, by inquiring what Impression
+the very Vulgar had taken of _Falstaff_. If it is not that of Cowardice,
+be it what else it may, that of a man of violence, or _a Ruffian in
+years_, as _Harry_ calls him, or any thing else, it answers my purpose;
+how insignificant soever the characters or incidents to be first produced
+may otherwise appear;--for these Impressions must have been taken either
+from personal knowledge and observation; or, what will do better for my
+purpose, from common fame. Altho' I must admit some part of this evidence
+will appear so weak and trifling that it certainly ought not to be
+produced but in proof Impression only.
+
+The _Hostess Quickly_ employs two officers to arrest _Falstaff_: On the
+mention of his name, one of them immediately observes, "_that it may
+chance to cost some of them their lives, for that he will stab._"--"_Alas a
+day,_" says the hostess, "_take heed of him, he cares not what mischief he
+doth; if his weapon be out, he will foin like any devil; He will spare
+neither man, woman, or child._" Accordingly, we find that when they lay
+hold on him he resists to the utmost of his power, and calls upon
+_Bardolph_, whose arms are at liberty, to draw. "_Away, varlets, draw
+Bardolph, cut me off the villain's head, throw the quean in the kennel._"
+The officers cry, _a rescue, a rescue!_ But the Chief Justice comes in and
+the scuffle ceases. In another scene, his wench _Doll Tearsheet_ asks him
+"_when he will leave fighting ... and patch up his old body for heaven._"
+This is occasioned by his drawing his rapier, on great provocation, and
+driving _Pistol_, who is drawn likewise, down stairs, and hurting him in
+the shoulder. To drive _Pistol_ was no great feat; nor do I mention it as
+such; but upon this occasion it was necessary. "_A Rascal bragging
+slave,_" says he, "_the rogue fled from me like quicksilver_": Expressions
+which, as they remember the cowardice of _Pistol_, seem to prove that
+_Falstaff_ did not value himself on the adventure. Even something may be
+drawn from _Davy, Shallow_'s serving man, who calls _Falstaff_, in
+ignorant admiration, the _man of war_. I must observe here, and I beg the
+reader will notice it, that there is not a single expression dropt by
+these people, or either of _Falstaff_'s followers, from which may be
+inferred the least suspicion of Cowardice in his character; and this is I
+think such an _implied negation_ as deserves considerable weight.
+
+But to go a little higher, if, indeed, to consider _Shallow_'s opinion be
+to go _higher_: It is from him, however, that we get the earliest account
+of _Falstaff_. He _remembers him a Page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of
+Norfolk_: "_He broke,_" says he, "_Schoggan's head at the Court-Gate when
+he was but a crack thus high._" _Shallow_, throughout, considers him as a
+great Leader and Soldier, and relates this fact as an early indication
+only of his future Prowess. _Shallow_, it is true, is a very ridiculous
+character; but he picked up these Impressions somewhere; and he picked up
+none of a contrary tendency.--I want at present only to prove that
+_Falstaff_ stood well in the report of common fame as to this point; and
+he was now near seventy years of age, and had passed in a Military line
+thro' the active part of his life. At this period common fame may be well
+considered as the _seal_ of his character; a seal which ought not perhaps
+to be broke open on the evidence of any future transaction.
+
+But to proceed. _Lord Bardolph_ was a man of the world, and of sense and
+observation. He informs _Northumberland_, erroneously indeed, that _Percy_
+had beaten the King at Shrewsbury. "_The King,_" according to him, "_was
+wounded; the Prince of Wales and the two Blunts slain, certain Nobles_,
+whom he names, _had escaped by flight, and the Brawn Sir John Falstaff was
+taken prisoner._" But how came _Falstaff_ into this list? Common fame had
+put him there. He is singularly obliged to Common fame.--But if he had not
+been a Soldier of repute, if he had not been brave as well as fat, if he
+had been _mere brawn_, it would have been more germane to the matter if
+this lord had put him down among the baggage or the provender. The fact
+seems to be that there is a real consequence about Sir _John Falstaff_
+which is not brought forward: We see him only in his familiar hours; we
+enter the tavern with _Hal_ and _Poins_; we join in the laugh and _take a
+pride to gird at him_: But there may be a great deal of truth in what he
+himself writes to the Prince, that tho' he be "_Jack Falstaff with his
+Familiars, he is __SIR JOHN__ with the rest of Europe._" It has been
+remarked, and very truly I believe, that no man is a hero in the eye of
+his valet-de-chambre; and _thus_ it is, we are witnesses only of
+_Falstaff_'s weakness and buffoonery; our acquaintance is with _Jack
+Falstaff_, _Plump Jack_, and _Sir John Paunch_; but if we would look for
+_Sir John Falstaff_, we must put on, as _Bunyan_ would have expressed it,
+the spectacles of observation. With respect, for instance, to his Military
+command at Shrewsbury, nothing appears on the surface but the Prince's
+familiarly saying, in the tone usually assumed when speaking of
+_Falstaff_, "_I will procure this fat rogue a Charge of foot_"; and in
+another place, "_I will procure thee Jack a Charge of foot; meet me
+to-morrow in the Temple Hall._" Indeed we might venture to infer from
+this, that a Prince of so great ability, whose wildness was only external
+and assumed, would not have procured, in so nice and critical a
+conjuncture, a Charge of foot for a known Coward. But there was more it
+seems in the case: We now find from this report, to which _Lord Bardolph_
+had given full credit, that the world had its eye upon _Falstaff_ as an
+officer of merit, whom it expected to find in the field, and whose fate in
+the battle was an object of Public concern: His life was, it seems, very
+material indeed; a thread of so much dependence, that _fiction_, weaving
+the fates of Princes, did not think it unworthy, how coarse soever, of
+being made a part of the tissue.
+
+We shall next produce the evidence of the Chief Justice of England. He
+inquires of his attendant, "_if the man who was then passing him was
+__FALSTAFF__; he who was in question for the robbery._" The attendant
+answers affirmatively, but reminds his lord "_that he had since done good
+service at Shrewsbury_"; and the Chief Justice, on this occasion, rating
+him for his debaucheries, tells him "_that his day's service at Shrewsbury
+had gilded over his night's exploit at Gads Hill._" This is surely more
+than Common fame: _The Chief Justice_ must have known his whole character
+taken together, and must have received the most authentic information, and
+in the truest colours, of his behaviour in that action.
+
+But, perhaps, after all, the Military men may be esteemed the best judges
+in points of this nature. Let us hear then _Coleville_ of the dale, _a
+Soldier, in degree a Knight, a famous rebel, and_ "_whose betters, had
+they been ruled by him, would have sold themselves dearer_": A man who is
+of consequence enough to be guarded by _Blunt_ and _led to present
+execution_. This man yields himself up even to the very Name and
+Reputation of _Falstaff_. "_I think_," says he, "_you are Sir John
+Falstaff, and in that thought yield me._" But this is but one only among
+the men of the sword; and they shall be produced then by _dozens_, if that
+will satisfy. Upon the return of the King and Prince Henry from Wales, the
+Prince seeks out and finds _Falstaff_ debauching in a tavern; where _Peto_
+presently brings an account of ill news from the North; and adds, "_that
+as he came along he met or overtook a dozen Captains, bare-headed,
+sweating, knocking at the taverns, and asking every one for __SIR JOHN
+FALSTAFF__._" He is followed by _Bardolph_, who informs _Falstaff_ that
+"_He must away to the Court immediately; a dozen Captains stay at door for
+him._" Here is Military evidence in abundance, and _Court evidence_ too;
+for what are we to infer from _Falstaff_'s being sent for to Court on this
+ill news, but that his opinion was to be asked, as a Military man of skill
+and experience, concerning the defences necessary to be taken. Nor is
+_Shakespeare_ content, here, with leaving us to gather up _Falstaff_'s
+_better character_ from inference and deduction: He comments on the fact
+by making _Falstaff_ observe that "_Men of merit are sought after: The
+undeserver may sleep when the man of action is called on._" I do not wish
+to draw _Falstaff_'s character out of his own mouth; but this observation
+refers to the fact, and is founded in reason. Nor ought we to reject what
+in another place he says to the Chief Justice, as it is in the nature of
+an appeal to his knowledge. "_There is not a dangerous action_," says he,
+"_can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it._" The Chief Justice seems
+by his answer to admit the fact. "_Well, be honest, be honest, and heaven
+bless your expedition._" But the whole passage may deserve transcribing.
+
+
+    Ch. Just. "_Well, the King has served you and Prince Henry. I hear
+    you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop
+    and the Earl of Northumberland._"
+
+    Fals. "_Yes, I thank your pretty sweet wit for it; but look you
+    pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies
+    join not in a hot day; for I take but two shirts out with me, and
+    I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: If it be a hot day, if I
+    brandish any thing but a bottle, would I might never spit white
+    again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head but I
+    am thrust upon it. Well I cannot last for ever.--But it was always
+    the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing to make
+    it too common. If you will needs say I am an old man you should
+    give me rest: I would to God my name were not so terrible to the
+    enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with a rust
+    than to be scour'd to nothing with perpetual motion._"
+
+    Ch. Just. "_Well be honest, be honest, and heaven bless your
+    expedition._"
+
+
+_Falstaff_ indulges himself here in humourous exaggeration;--these passages
+are not meant to be taken, nor are we to suppose that they were taken,
+literally;--but if there was not a ground of truth, if _Falstaff_ had not
+had such a degree of Military reputation as was capable of being thus
+humourously amplified and exaggerated, the whole dialogue would have been
+highly preposterous and absurd, and the acquiescing answer of the _Lord
+Chief Justice_ singularly improper.--But upon the supposition of
+_Falstaff_'s being considered, upon the whole, as a good and gallant
+Officer, the answer is just, and corresponds with the acknowledgment which
+had a little before been made, "_that his days service at Shrewsbury had
+gilded over his night's exploit at Gads Hill.--You may thank the unquiet
+time,_" says the Chief Justice, "_for your quiet o'erposting of that
+action_"; agreeing with what _Falstaff_ says in another place;--"_Well, God
+be thanked for these Rebels, they offend none but the virtuous; I laud
+them, I praise them._"--Whether this be said in the true spirit of a
+Soldier or not, I do not determine; it is surely not in that of a mere
+Coward and Poltroon.
+
+It will be needless to shew, which might be done from a variety of
+particulars, that _Falstaff_ was known and had consideration at Court.
+_Shallow_ cultivates him in the idea that _a friend at Court is better
+than a penny in purse_: _Westmorland_ speaks to him in the tone of an
+equal: Upon _Falstaff_'s telling him that he thought his lordship had been
+already at Shrewsbury, _Westmorland_ replies,--"_Faith Sir John, 'tis more
+than time that I were there, and you too; the King I can tell you looks
+for us all; we must away all to night._"--"_Tut,_" says Falstaff, "_never
+fear me, I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream._"--He desires, in
+another place, of my lord John of Lancaster, "_that when he goes to Court,
+he may stand in his good report._" His intercourse and correspondence with
+both these lords seem easy and familiar. "_Go,_" says he to the page,
+"_bear this to my Lord of Lancaster, this to the Prince, this to the Earl
+of Westmorland, and this_ (for he extended himself on all sides) _to old
+Mrs. Ursula_," whom, it seems, the rogue ought to have married many years
+before.--But these intimations are needless: We see him ourselves in the
+_Royal Presence_; where, certainly, his buffooneries never brought him;
+never was the Prince of a character to commit so high an indecorum, as to
+thrust, upon a solemn occasion, a mere Tavern companion into his father's
+Presence, especially in a moment when he himself deserts his looser
+character, and takes up that of _a Prince indeed_.--In a very important
+scene, where _Worcester_ is expected with proposals from _Percy_, and
+wherein he is received, is treated with, and carries back offers of
+accommodation from the King, the King's attendants upon the occasion are
+_the Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, the Earl of Westmorland, Sir
+Walter Blunt, and Sir John Falstaff_.--What shall be said to this?
+_Falstaff_ is not surely introduced here in vicious indulgence to a mob
+audience;--he utters but one word, a buffoon one indeed, but aside, and to
+the Prince only. Nothing, it should seem, is wanting, if decorum would
+here have permitted, but that he should have spoken one sober sentence in
+the Presence (which yet we are to suppose him ready and able to do if
+occasion should have required; or his wit was given him to little purpose)
+and Sir _John Falstaff_ might be allowed to pass for an established
+Courtier and counsellor of state. "_If I do grow great,_" says he, "_I'll
+grow less, purge and leave sack, and live as a nobleman should do._"
+Nobility did not then appear to him at an unmeasurable distance; it was,
+it seems, in his idea, the very next link in the chain.
+
+But to return. I would now demand what could bring _Falstaff_ into the
+Royal Presence upon such an occasion, or justify the Prince's so public
+acknowledgment of him, but an established fame and reputation of Military
+merit? In short, just the like merit as brought Sir _Walter Blunt_ into
+the same circumstances of honour.
+
+But it may be objected that his introduction into this scene is a piece of
+indecorum in the author. But upon what ground are we to suppose this? Upon
+the ground of his being a notorious Coward? Why, this is the very point in
+question, and cannot be granted: Even the direct contrary I have affirmed,
+and am endeavouring to support. But if it be supposed upon any other
+ground, it does not concern me; I have nothing to do with _Shakespeare_'s
+indecorums in general. That there are indecorums in the Play I have no
+doubt: The indecent treatment of _Percy_'s dead body is the greatest;--the
+familiarity of the significant, rude, and even ill disposed _Poins_ with
+the Prince, is another;--but the admission of _Falstaff_ into the Royal
+Presence (supposing, which I have a right to suppose, that his Military
+character was unimpeached) does not seem to be in any respect among the
+number. In camps there is but one virtue and one vice; Military merit
+swallows up or covers all. But, after all, what have we to do with
+indecorums? Indecorums respect the propriety or impropriety of exhibiting
+certain actions;--not their _truth_ or _falshood_ when exhibited.
+_Shakespeare_ stands to us in the place of _truth_ and _nature_: If we
+desert this principle, we cut the turf from under us; I may then object to
+the robbery and other passages as indecorums, and as contrary to the truth
+of character. In short we may rend and tear the Play to pieces, and every
+man carry off what sentences he likes best.--But why this inveterate malice
+against poor _Falstaff_? He has faults enough in conscience without
+loading him with the infamy of Cowardice; a charge, which, if true, would,
+if I am not greatly mistaken, spoil all our mirth.--But of that hereafter.
+
+It seems to me that, in our hasty judgment of some particular
+transactions, we forget the circumstances and condition of his whole life
+and character, which yet deserve our very particular attention. The
+author, it is true, has thrown the most advantageous of these
+circumstances into the _back ground_, as it were, and has brought nothing
+_out of the canvass_ but his follies and buffoonery. We discover, however,
+that in a very early period of his life he was familiar with _John_ of
+_Gaunt_; which could hardly be, unless he had possessed much personal
+gallantry and accomplishment, and had derived his birth from a
+distinguished at least, if not from a Noble family.
+
+It may seem very extravagant to insist upon _Falstaff_'s birth as a ground
+from which, by any inference, Personal courage may be derived, especially
+after having acknowledged that he seemed to have deserted those points of
+honour which are more peculiarly the accompanyments of rank. But it may be
+observed that in the Feudal ages rank and wealth were not only connected
+with the point of honour, but with personal strength and natural courage.
+It is observable that Courage is a quality which is at least as
+transmissible to one's posterity as features and complexion. In these
+periods men acquired and maintained their rank and possessions by personal
+prowess and gallantry; and their marriage alliances were made, of course,
+in families of the same character: And from hence, and from the exercises
+of their youth, we must account for the distinguished force and bravery of
+our antient Barons. It is not therefore beside my purpose to inquire what
+hints of the origin and birth of _Falstaff_, _Shakespeare_ may have
+dropped in different parts of the Play; for tho' we may be disposed to
+allow that _Falstaff_ in his old age might, under particular influences,
+desert the point of honour, we cannot give up that unalienable possession
+of Courage, which might have been derived to him from a noble or
+distinguished stock.
+
+But it may be said that _Falstaff_ was in truth the child of invention
+only, and that a reference to the Feudal accidents of birth serves only to
+confound fiction with reality: Not altogether so. If the ideas of courage
+and _birth_ were strongly associated in the days of _Shakespeare_, then
+would the assignment of high birth to _Falstaff_ carry, and be intended to
+carry along with it, to the minds of the audience the associated idea of
+Courage, if nothing should be specially interposed to dissolve the
+connection;--and the question is as concerning this intention, and this
+effect.
+
+I shall proceed yet farther to make a few very minute observations of the
+same nature: But if _Shakespeare_ meant sometimes rather to _impress_ than
+explain, no circumstances calculated to this end, either directly or by
+association, are too minute for notice. But however this may be, a more
+conciliating reason still remains: The argument itself, like the tales of
+our Novelists, is a _vehicle_ only; _theirs_, as they profess, of moral
+instruction; and _mine_ of critical amusement. The vindication of
+_Falstaff_'s Courage deserves not for its own sake the least sober
+discussion; _Falstaff_ is the word only, _Shakespeare_ is the _Theme_: And
+if thro' this channel I can furnish no irrational amusement, the reader
+will not, perhaps, every where expect from me the strict severity of
+logical investigation.
+
+_Falstaff_, then, it may be observed, was introduced into the world,--(at
+least we are told so) by the name of _Oldcastle_.(41) This was assigning
+him an origin of nobility; but the family of that name disclaiming any
+kindred with his vices, he was thereupon, as it is said, ingrafted into
+another stock(42) scarcely less distinguished, tho' fallen into indelible
+disgraces; and by this means he has been made, if the conjectures of
+certain critics are well founded, the Dramatic successor, tho', having
+respect to chronology, the natural _proavus_ of another Sir _John_, who
+was no less than a Knight of the most noble order of the Garter, but a
+name for ever dishonoured by a frequent exposure in that Drum-and-trumpet
+Thing called _The first part of Henry_ VI., written doubtless, or rather
+exhibited, long before _Shakespeare_ was born,(43) tho' afterwards
+repaired, I think, and furbished up by him with here and there a little
+sentiment and diction. This family, if any branch of it remained in
+_Shakespeare_'s time, might have been proud of their Dramatic ally, if
+indeed they could have any fair pretence to claim as such _him_ whom
+_Shakespeare_, perhaps in contempt of Cowardice, wrote _Falstaff_, not
+_Fastolfe_, the true Historic name of the Gartered Craven.
+
+In the age of Henry IV. a Family crest and arms were authentic proofs of
+gentility; and this proof, among others, _Shakespeare_ has furnished us
+with: _Falstaff_ always carried about him, it seems, _a Seal ring of his
+Grandfather's, worth_, as he says, _forty marks_: The Prince indeed
+affirms, but not seriously I think, that this ring was _copper_. As to the
+existence of the _bonds_, which were I suppose the negotiable securities
+or paper-money of the time, and which he pretended to have lost, I have
+nothing to say; but the ring, I believe, was really gold; tho' probably a
+little too much alloyed with baser metal. But this is not the point: The
+_arms_ were doubtless genuine; they were borne by his Grandfather, and are
+proofs of an antient gentility; a gentility doubtless, in former periods,
+connected with wealth and possessions, tho' the gold of the family might
+have been transmuting by degrees, and perhaps, in the hands of _Falstaff_,
+converted into little better than copper. This observation is made on the
+supposition of _Falstaff_'s being considered as the head of the family,
+which I think however he ought not to be. It appears rather as if he ought
+to be taken in the light of a cadet or younger brother; which the familiar
+appellation of _John_, "the only one (as he says) given him by his
+brothers and sisters," seems to indicate. Be this as it may, we find he is
+able, in spite of dissipation, to keep up a certain _state_ and _dignity_
+of appearance; retaining no less than four, if not five, followers or men
+servants in his train. He appears also to have had apartments in town,
+and, by his invitations of _Master Gower_ to dinner and to supper, a
+regular table: And one may infer farther from the Prince's question, on
+his return from Wales, to _Bardolph_, "_Is your master_ here _in London_,"
+that he had likewise a house in the country. Slight proofs it must be
+confessed, yet the inferences are so probable, so buoyant, in their own
+nature, that they may well rest on them. That he did not lodge at the
+Tavern is clear from the circumstances of the arrest. These various
+occasions of expence,--servants, taverns, houses, and whores,--necessarily
+imply that _Falstaff_ must have had some funds which are not brought
+immediately under our notice. That these funds were not however adequate
+to his style of living is plain: Perhaps his train may be considered only
+as incumbrances, which the pride of family and the habit of former
+opulence might have brought upon his present poverty: I do not mean
+absolute poverty, but call it so as relative to his expence. To have "_but
+seven groats and two-pence in his purse_" and a page to bear it, is truly
+ridiculous; and it is for that reason we become so familiar with its
+contents, "_He can find_," he says, "_no remedy for this consumption of
+the purse, borrowing does but linger and linger it out; but the disease is
+incurable_." It might well be deemed so in his course of dissipation: But
+I shall presently suggest one source at least of his supply much more
+constant and honourable than that of borrowing. But the condition of
+_Falstaff_ as to opulence or poverty is not very material to my purpose:
+It is enough if his birth was distinguished, and his youth noted for
+gallantry and accomplishments. To the first I have spoken, and as for the
+latter we shall not be at a loss when we remember that "_he was in his
+youth a page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk_"; a situation at that
+time sought for by young men of the best families and first fortune. The
+house of every great noble was at that period a kind of Military school;
+and it is probable that _Falstaff_ was singularly adroit at his exercises:
+"_He broke Schoggan's head_," (some boisterous fencer I suppose) "_when he
+was but a crack thus high_." _Shallow_ remembers him _as notedly skilful
+at backsword_; and he was at that period, according to his own humourous
+account, "_scarcely an eagle's talon in the waist, and could have crept
+thro' an alderman's thumb ring_." Even at the age at which he is exhibited
+to us, we find him _foundering_, as he calls it, _nine score and odd
+miles_, with wonderful expedition, to join the army of Prince _John_ of
+_Lancaster_; and declaring, after the surrender of _Coleville_, that "_had
+he but a belly of any indifferency, he were simply the most active fellow
+in Europe_." Nor ought we here to pass over his Knighthood without notice.
+It was, I grant, intended by the author as a dignity which, like his
+Courage and his wit, was to be debased; his knighthood by low situations,
+his Courage by circumstances and imputations of cowardice, and his wit by
+buffoonery. But how are we to suppose this honour was acquired? By that
+very Courage, it should seem, which we so obstinately deny him. It was not
+certainly given him, like a modern City Knighthood, for his wealth or
+gravity: It was in these days a Military honour, and an authentic badge of
+Military merit.
+
+But _Falstaff_ was not only a Military Knight, he possess'd an honourable
+_pension_ into the bargain; the reward as well as retainer of service, and
+which seems (besides the favours perhaps of Mrs. _Ursula_) to be the
+principal and only solid support of his present expences. But let us refer
+to the passage. "_A pox of this gout, or a gout of this pox; for one or
+the other plays the rogue with my great toe: It is no matter if I do halt,
+I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more
+reasonable._" The mention _Falstaff_ here makes of a pension, has I
+believe been generally construed to refer rather to _hope_ than
+_possession_, yet I know not why: For the possessive MY, _my pension_,
+(not _a_ pension) requires a different construction. Is it that we cannot
+enjoy a wit till we have stript him of every worldly advantage, and
+reduced him below the level of our envy? It may be perhaps for this reason
+among others that _Shakespeare_ has so obscured the better parts of
+_Falstaff_ and stolen them secretly out of our feelings, instead of
+opening them fairly to the notice of our understandings. How carelessly,
+and thro' what bye-paths, as it were, of casual inference, is this fact of
+a pension introduced! And how has he associated it with misfortune and
+infirmity! Yet I question, however, if, in this one place, the
+_Impression_ which was intended be well and effectually made. It must be
+left to the reader to determine if, in that mass of things out of which
+_Falstaff_ is compounded, he ever considered a pension as any part of the
+composition: A pension however he appears to have had, one that halting
+could only seem to make more reasonable, not more honourable. The
+inference arising from the fact, I shall leave to the reader. It is surely
+a circumstance highly advantageous to _Falstaff_ (I speak of the pensions
+of former days), whether he be considered in the light of a soldier or a
+gentleman.
+
+I cannot foresee the temper of the reader, nor whether he be content to go
+along with me in these kind of observations. Some of the incidents which I
+have drawn out of the Play may appear too minute, whilst yet they refer to
+principles which may seem too general. Many points require explanation;
+something should be said of the nature of _Shakespeare_'s Dramatic
+characters;(44) by what arts they were formed, and wherein they differ
+from those of other writers; something likewise more professedly of
+_Shakespeare_ himself, and of the peculiar character of his genius. After
+such a review we may not perhaps think any consideration arising out of
+the Play, or out of general nature, either as too minute or too extensive.
+
+_Shakespeare_ is, in truth, an author whose mimic creation agrees in
+general so perfectly with that of nature, that it is not only wonderful in
+the great, but opens another scene of amazement to the discoveries of the
+microscope. We have been charged indeed by a Foreign writer with an
+overmuch admiring of this _Barbarian_: Whether we have admired with
+knowledge, or have blindly followed those feelings of affection which we
+could not resist, I cannot tell; but certain it is, that to the labours of
+his Editors he has not been overmuch obliged. They are however for the
+most part of the first rank in literary fame; but some of them had
+possessions of their own in Parnassus, of an extent too great and
+important to allow of a very diligent attention to the interests of
+others; and among those Critics more professionally so, the ablest and the
+best has unfortunately looked more to the praise of ingenious than of just
+conjecture. The character of his emendations are not so much that of
+_right_ or _wrong_, as that, being in the extreme, they are always
+_Warburtonian_. Another has since undertaken the custody of our author,
+whom he seems to consider as a sort of wild Proteus or madman, and
+accordingly knocks him down with the butt-end of his critical staff, as
+often as he exceeds that line of sober discretion, which this learned
+Editor appears to have chalked out for him: Yet is this Editor
+notwithstanding "a man, take him for all in all," very highly respectable
+for his genius and his learning. What however may be chiefly complained of
+in these gentlemen is, that having erected themselves into the condition,
+as it were, of guardians and trustees of _Shakespeare_, they have never
+undertaken to discharge the disgraceful incumbrances of some wretched
+productions which have long hung heavy on his fame. Besides the evidence
+of taste, which indeed is not communicable, there are yet other and more
+general proofs that these incumbrances were not incurred by _Shakespeare_:
+The _Latin_ sentences dispersed thro' the imputed trash is, I think, of
+itself a decisive one. _Love's Labour lost_ contains a very conclusive one
+of another kind; tho' the very last Editor has, I believe, in his critical
+sagacity, suppressed the evidence, and withdrawn the record.
+
+Yet whatever may be the neglect of some, or the censure of others, there
+are those who firmly believe that this wild, this uncultivated Barbarian
+has not yet obtained one half of his fame; and who trust that some new
+Stagyrite will arise, who instead of pecking at the surface of things will
+enter into the inward soul of his compositions, and expel, by the force of
+congenial feelings, those foreign impurities which have stained and
+disgraced his page. And as to those _spots_ which will still remain, they
+may perhaps become invisible to those who shall seek them thro' the medium
+of his beauties, instead of looking for those beauties, as is too
+frequently done, thro' the smoke of some real or imputed obscurity. When
+the hand of time shall have brushed off his present Editors and
+Commentators, and when the very name of _Voltaire_, and even the memory of
+the language in which he has written, shall be no more, the _Apalachian_
+mountains, the banks of the _Ohio_, and the plains of _Sciota_ shall
+resound with the accents of this Barbarian: In his native tongue he shall
+roll the genuine passions of nature; nor shall the griefs of _Lear_ be
+alleviated, or the charms and wit of _Rosalind_ be abated by time. There
+is indeed nothing perishable about him, except that very learning which he
+is said so much to want. He had not, it is true, enough for the demands of
+the age in which he lived, but he had perhaps too much for the reach of
+his genius, and the interest of his fame. _Milton_ and he will carry the
+decayed remnants and fripperies of antient mythology into more distant
+ages than they are by their own force intitled to extend; and the
+_Metamorphoses_ of _Ovid_, upheld by them, lay in a new claim to unmerited
+immortality.
+
+_Shakespeare_ is a name so interesting, that it is excusable to stop a
+moment, nay it would be indecent to pass him without the tribute of some
+admiration. He differs essentially from all other writers: Him we may
+profess rather to feel than to understand; and it is safer to say, on many
+occasions, that we are possessed by him, than that we possess him. And no
+wonder;--He scatters the seeds of things, the principles of character and
+action, with so cunning a hand, yet with so careless an air, and, master
+of our feelings, submits himself so little to our judgment, that every
+thing seems superior. We discern not his course, we see no connection of
+cause and effect, we are rapt in ignorant admiration, and claim no kindred
+with his abilities. All the incidents, all the parts, look like chance,
+whilst we feel and are sensible that the whole is design. His Characters
+not only act and speak in strict conformity to nature, but in strict
+relation to us; just so much is shewn as is requisite, just so much is
+impressed; he commands every passage to our heads and to our hearts, and
+moulds us as he pleases, and that with so much ease, that he never betrays
+his own exertions. We see these Characters act from the mingled motives of
+passion, reason, interest, habit, and complection, in all their
+proportions, when they are supposed to know it not themselves; and we are
+made to acknowledge that their actions and sentiments are, from those
+motives, the necessary result. He at once blends and distinguishes every
+thing;--every thing is complicated, every thing is plain. I restrain the
+further expressions of my admiration lest they should not seem applicable
+to man; but it is really astonishing that a mere human being, a part of
+humanity only, should so perfectly comprehend the whole; and that he
+should possess such exquisite art, that whilst every woman and every child
+shall feel the whole effect, his learned Editors and Commentators should
+yet so very frequently mistake or seem ignorant of the cause. A sceptre or
+a straw are in his hands of equal efficacy; he needs no selection; he
+converts every thing into excellence; nothing is too great, nothing is too
+base. Is a character efficient like _Richard_, it is every thing we can
+wish: Is it otherwise, like _Hamlet_, it is productive of equal
+admiration: Action produces one mode of excellence, and inaction another:
+The Chronicle, the Novel, or the Ballad; the king, or the beggar, the
+hero, the madman, the sot, or the fool; it is all one;--nothing is worse,
+nothing is better: The same genius pervades and is equally admirable in
+all. Or, is a character to be shewn in progressive change, and the events
+of years comprized within the hour;--with what a Magic hand does he prepare
+and scatter his spells! The Understanding must, in the first place, be
+subdued; and lo! how the rooted prejudices of the child spring up to
+confound the man! The Weird sisters rise, and order is extinguished. The
+laws of nature give way, and leave nothing in our minds but wildness and
+horror. No pause is allowed us for reflection: Horrid sentiment, furious
+guilt and compunction, air-drawn daggers, murders, ghosts, and
+inchantment, shake and _possess us wholly_. In the mean time the _process_
+is completed. _Macbeth_ changes under our eye, _the milk of human kindness
+is converted to gall; he has supped full of horrors_, and his _May of life
+is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf_; whilst we, the fools of
+amazement, are insensible to the shifting of place and the lapse of time,
+and, till the curtain drops, never once wake to the truth of things, or
+recognize the laws of existence.--On such an occasion, a fellow, like
+_Rymer_, waking from his trance, shall lift up his Constable's staff, and
+charge this great Magician, this daring _practicer of arts inhibited_, in
+the name of _Aristotle_, to surrender; whilst _Aristotle_ himself,
+disowning his wretched Officer, would fall prostrate at his feet and
+acknowledge his supremacy.--O supreme of Dramatic excellence! (_might he
+say_) not to me be imputed the insolence of fools. The bards of _Greece_
+were confined within the narrow circle of the Chorus, and hence they found
+themselves constrained to practice, for the most part, the precision, and
+copy the details of nature. I followed them, and knew not that a larger
+circle might be drawn, and the Drama extended to the whole reach of human
+genius. Convinced, I see that a more compendious _nature_ may be obtained;
+a nature of _effects_ only, to which neither the relations of place, or
+continuity of time, are always essential. Nature, condescending to the
+faculties and apprehensions of man, has drawn through human life a regular
+chain of visible causes and effects: But Poetry delights in surprise,
+conceals her steps, seizes at once upon the heart, and obtains the Sublime
+of things without betraying the rounds of her ascent: True Poesy is
+_magic_, not _nature_; an effect from causes hidden or unknown. To the
+Magician I prescribed no laws; his law and his power are one; his power is
+his law. Him, who neither imitates, nor is within the reach of imitation,
+no precedent can or ought to bind, no limits to contain. If his end is
+obtained, who shall question his course? Means, whether apparent or
+hidden, are justified in Poesy by success; but then most perfect and most
+admirable when most concealed.(45) But whither am I going! This copious
+and delightful topic has drawn me far beyond my design; I hasten back to
+my subject, and am guarded, for a time at least, against any further
+temptation to digress.
+
+I was considering the dignity of _Falstaff_ so far as it might seem
+connected with or productive of military merit, and I have assigned him
+_reputation_ at least, if not _fame_, noble connection, birth, attendants,
+title, and an honourable pension; every one of them presumptive proofs of
+Military merit, and motives of action. What deduction is to be made on
+these articles, and why they are so much obscured may, perhaps, hereafter
+appear.
+
+I have now gone through the examination of all the Persons of the Drama
+from whose mouths any thing can be drawn relative to the Courage of
+_Falstaff_, excepting the Prince and _Poins_, whose evidence I have begged
+leave to _reserve_, and excepting a very severe censure passed on him by
+Lord _John_ of _Lancaster_, which I shall presently consider: But I must
+first observe that, setting aside the jests of the Prince and _Poins_, and
+this censure of _Lancaster_, there is not one expression uttered by any
+character in the Drama that can be construed into any impeachment of
+_Falstaff_'s Courage;--an observation made before as respecting some of the
+Witnesses;--it is now extended to all: And though this silence be a
+negative proof only, it cannot, in my opinion, under the circumstances of
+the case, and whilst uncontradicted by facts, be too much relied on. If
+_Falstaff_ had been intended for the character of a _Miles Gloriosus_, his
+behaviour ought and therefore would have been commented upon by others.
+_Shakespeare_ seldom trusts to the apprehensions of his audience; his
+characters interpret for one another continually, and when we least
+suspect such artful and secret management: The conduct of _Shakespeare_ in
+this respect is admirable, and I could point out a thousand passages which
+might put to shame the advocates of a formal Chorus, and prove that there
+is as little of necessity as grace in so mechanic a contrivance.(46) But I
+confine my censure of the Chorus to its supposed use of comment and
+interpretation only.
+
+_Falstaff_ is, indeed, so far from appearing to my eye in the light of a
+_Miles Gloriosus_, that, in the best of my taste and judgment, he does not
+discover, except in consequence of the robbery, the least _trait_ of such
+a character. All his boasting speeches are humour, mere humour, and
+carefully spoken to persons who cannot misapprehend them, who cannot be
+imposed on: They contain indeed, for the most part, an unreasonable and
+imprudent ridicule of himself, the usual subject of his good humoured
+merriment; but in the company of ignorant people, such as the Justices, or
+his own followers, he is remarkably reserved, and does not hazard any
+thing, even in the way of humour, that may be subject to mistake: Indeed
+he no where seems to suspect that his character is open to censure on this
+side, or that he needs the arts of imposition.--"_Turk Gregory never did
+such deeds in arms as I have done this day_" is spoken, whilst he breathes
+from action, to the Prince in a tone of jolly humour, and contains nothing
+but a light ridicule of his own inactivity: This is as far from real
+boasting as his saying before the battle, "_Wou'd it were bed-time,
+__HAL__, and all were well_," is from meanness or depression. This
+articulated wish is not the fearful outcry of a _Coward_, but the frank
+and honest breathing of a _generous fellow_, who does not expect to be
+seriously reproached with the character. Instead, indeed, of deserving the
+name of a vain glorious _Coward_, his modesty perhaps on his head, and
+whimsical ridicule of himself, have been a principal source of the
+imputation.
+
+But to come to the very serious reproach thrown upon him by that _cold
+blooded_ boy, as he calls him, _Lancaster_.--_Lancaster_ makes a solemn
+treaty of peace with the _Archbishop of York, Mowbray_, &c. upon the faith
+of which they disperse their troops; which is no sooner done than
+_Lancaster_ arrests the Principals, and pursues the _scattered stray_: A
+transaction, by the bye, so singularly perfidious, that I wish
+_Shakespeare_, for his own credit, had not suffered it to pass under his
+pen without marking it with the blackest strokes of Infamy.--During this
+transaction, _Falstaff_ arrives, joins in the pursuit, and takes Sir _John
+Coleville_ prisoner. Upon being seen by _Lancaster_ he is thus addressed:--
+
+
+    "Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?
+    When every thing is over, then you come:
+    These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,
+    One time or other break some gallows' back."
+
+
+This may appear to many a very formidable passage. It is spoken, as we may
+say, in the hearing of the army, and by one intitled as it were by his
+station to decide on military conduct; and if no punishment immediately
+follows, the forbearance may be imputed to a regard for the Prince of
+Wales, whose favour the delinquent was known so unworthily to possess. But
+this reasoning will by no means apply to the real circumstances of the
+case. The effect of this passage will depend on the credit we shall be
+inclined to give to _Lancaster_ for integrity and candour, and still more
+upon the facts which are the ground of this censure, and which are fairly
+offered by _Shakespeare_ to our notice.
+
+We will examine the evidence arising from both; and to this end we must in
+the first place a little unfold the character of this young Commander in
+chief;--from a review of which we may more clearly discern the general
+impulses and secret motives of his conduct: And this is a proceeding which
+I think the peculiar character of _Shakespeare_'s Drama will very well
+justify.
+
+We are already well prepared what to think of this young man:--We have just
+seen a very pretty manoeuvre of his in a matter of the highest moment, and
+have therefore the less reason to be surprized if we find him practising a
+more petty fraud with suitable skill and address. He appears in truth to
+have been what _Falstaff_ calls him, _a cold, reserved, sober-blooded
+boy_; a politician, as it should seem, by nature; bred up moreover in the
+school of _Bolingbroke_ his father, and tutored to betray: With sufficient
+courage and ability perhaps, but with too much of the knave in his
+composition, and too little of enthusiasm, ever to be a great and superior
+character. That such a youth as this should, even from the propensities of
+character alone, take any plausible occasion to injure a frank unguarded
+man of wit and pleasure, will not appear unnatural. But he had other
+inducements. _Falstaff_ had given very general scandal by his
+distinguished wit and noted poverty, insomuch that a little cruelty and
+injustice towards him was likely to pass, in the eye of the grave and
+prudent part of mankind, as a very creditable piece of fraud, and to be
+accounted to _Lancaster_ for virtue and good service. But _Lancaster_ had
+motives yet more prevailing; _Falstaff_ was a Favourite, without the power
+which belongs to that character; and the tone of the Court was strongly
+against him, as the misleader and corrupter of the Prince; who was now at
+too great a distance to afford him immediate countenance and protection. A
+scratch then, between jest and earnest as it were, something that would
+not too much offend the prince, yet would leave behind a disgraceful scar
+upon _Falstaff_, was very suitable to the temper and situation of parties
+and affairs. With these observations in our thought, let us return to the
+passage: It is plainly intended for disgrace, but how artful, how
+cautious, how insidious is the manner! It may pass for sheer pleasantry
+and humour: _Lancaster_ assumes the familiar phrase and _girding_ tone of
+_Harry_; and the gallows, as he words it, appears to be in the most danger
+from an encounter with _Falstaff_.--With respect to the matter, 'tis a kind
+of _miching malicho_; it means mischief indeed, but there is not precision
+enough in it to intitle it to the appellation of a formal charge, or to
+give to _Falstaff_ any certain and determined ground of defence. _Tardy
+tricks_ may mean not Cowardice but neglect only, though the _manner_ may
+seem to carry the imputation to both.--The reply of _Falstaff_ is exactly
+suited to the qualities of the speech;--for _Falstaff_ never wants ability,
+but conduct only. He answers the general effect of this speech by a
+feeling and serious complaint of injustice; he then goes on to apply his
+defence to the vindication both of his diligence and courage; but he
+deserts by degrees his serious tone, and taking the handle of pleasantry
+which _Lancaster_ had held forth to him, he is prudently content, as being
+sensible of _Lancaster_'s high rank and station, to let the whole pass off
+in buffoonery and humour. But the question is, however, not concerning the
+adroitness and management of either party: Our business is, after putting
+the credit of _Lancaster_ out of the question, to discover what there may
+be of truth and of fact either in the charge of the one, or the defence of
+the other. From this only, we shall be able to draw our inferences with
+fairness and with candour. The charge against _Falstaff_ is already in the
+possession of the reader: The defence follows.--
+
+Fals. "_I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I never knew yet
+but that rebuke and check were the reward of valour. Do you think me a
+swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? Have I in my poor and old motion the
+expedition of thought? I speeded hither within the very extremest inch of
+possibility. I have foundered ninescore and odd posts_ (deserting by
+degrees his serious tone, for _one_ of more address and advantage), _and
+here, travel-tainted as I am, have I in my pure and immaculate valour
+taken Sir John Coleville of the dale, a most furious Knight and valorous
+enemy._"
+
+_Falstaff_'s answer then is that he used all possible expedition to join
+the army; the not doing of which, with an implication of Cowardice as the
+cause, is the utmost extent of the charge against him; and to take off
+this implication he refers to the evidence of a fact present and
+manifest,--the surrender of _Coleville_; in whose hearing he speaks, and to
+whom therefore he is supposed to appeal. Nothing then remains but that we
+should inquire if _Falstaff_'s answer was really founded in truth; "_I
+speeded hither_" says he, "_within the extremest inch of possibility_": If
+it be so, he is justified: But I am afraid, for we must not conceal any
+thing, that _Falstaff_ was really detained too long by his debaucheries in
+London; at least, if we take the Chief Justice's words very strictly.
+
+"Ch. Just. _How now, Sir John? What are you brawling here? Doth this
+become your __PLACE__, your __TIME__, your __BUSINESS__? You should have
+been well on your way to York._"
+
+Here then seems to be a delay worthy perhaps of rebuke; and if we could
+suppose _Lancaster_ to mean nothing more by _tardy tricks_ than idleness
+and debauch, I should not possibly think myself much concerned to
+vindicate _Falstaff_ from the charge; but the words imply, to my
+apprehension, a designed and deliberate avoidance of danger. Yet to the
+contrary of this we are furnished with very full and complete evidence.
+_Falstaff_, the moment he quits London, discovers the utmost eagerness and
+impatience to join the army; he gives up his gluttony, his mirth, and his
+ease. We see him take up in his passage some recruits at _Shallow_'s
+house; and tho' he has pecuniary views upon _Shallow_, no inducement stops
+him; he takes no refreshment, he cannot _tarry dinner_, he hurries off;
+"_I will not_," says he to the Justices, "_use many words with you. Fare
+ye well, Gentlemen both; I thank ye, I must a dozen miles to night._"--He
+misuses, it is true, at this time the _King's Press damnably_; but that
+does not concern me, at least not for the present; it belongs to other
+parts of his character.--It appears then manifestly that _Shakespeare_
+meant to shew _Falstaff_ as really using the utmost speed in his power; he
+arrives almost literally _within the extremest inch of possibility_; and
+if _Lancaster_ had not accelerated the event by a stroke of perfidy much
+more subject to the imputation of Cowardice than the _Debauch_ of
+_Falstaff_, he would have been time enough to have shared in the danger of
+a fair and honest decision. But great men have, it seems, a privilege;
+"_that in the __GENERAL'S__ but a choleric word, which in the __SOLDIER
+WERE__ flat blasphemy._" Yet after all, _Falstaff_ did really come time
+enough, as it appears, to join in the villainous triumphs of the day, to
+take prisoner _Coleville of the dale, a most furious Knight and valorous
+enemy_.--Let us look to the fact. If this incident should be found to
+contain any striking proof of _Falstaff_'s Courage and Military fame, his
+defence against _Lancaster_ will be stronger than the reader has even a
+right to demand. _Falstaff_ encounters _Coleville_ in the field, and,
+having demanded his name, is ready to assail him; but _Coleville_ asks him
+if he is not Sir _John Falstaff_; thereby implying a purpose of surrender.
+_Falstaff_ will not so much as furnish him with a pretence, and answers
+only, that _he is as good a man_. "_Do you yield Sir, or shall I sweat for
+you?_" "_I think_," says Coleville, "_you are Sir John Falstaff, and in
+that thought yield me._" This fact, and the incidents with which it is
+accompanied, speak loudly; it seems to have been contrived by the author
+on purpose to take off a rebuke so authoritatively made by _Lancaster_.
+The fact is set before our eyes to confute the censure: _Lancaster_
+himself seems to give up his charge, tho' not his ill will; for upon
+_Falstaff_'s asking leave to pass through Glostershire, and artfully
+desiring that, upon _Lancaster_'s return to Court, _he might stand well in
+his report, Lancaster_ seems in his answer to mingle malice and acquittal.
+"_Fare ye well, Falstaff, I in my condition shall better speak of you than
+you deserve._" "_I would_," says _Falstaff_, who is left behind in the
+scene, "_You had but the wit; 'twere better than your Dukedom._" He
+continues on the stage some time chewing the cud of dishonour, which, with
+all his facility, he cannot well swallow. "_Good faith_" says he,
+accounting to himself as well as he could for the injurious conduct of
+_Lancaster_, "_this sober-blooded boy does not love me._" This he might
+well believe. "_A man_," says he, "_cannot make him laugh; there's none of
+these demure boys come to any proof; but that's no marvel, they drink no
+sack._"--_Falstaff_ then it seems knew no drinker of sack who was a Coward;
+at least the instance was not home and familiar to him.--"_They all_," says
+he, "_fall into a kind of Male green sickness, and are generally fools and
+Cowards._" Anger has a privilege, and I think _Falstaff_ has a right to
+turn the tables upon _Lancaster_ if he can; but _Lancaster_ was certainly
+no fool, and I think upon the whole no Coward; yet the Male green sickness
+which _Falstaff_ talks of seems to have infected his manners and aspect,
+and taken from him all external indication of gallantry and courage. He
+behaves in the battle of Shrewsbury beyond the promise of his complexion
+and deportment: "_By heaven thou hast deceived me Lancaster_," says Harry,
+"_I did not think thee Lord of such a spirit!_" Nor was his father less
+surprized "_at his holding Lord Percy at the point with lustier
+maintenance than he did look for from such an unripe warrior._" But how
+well and unexpectedly soever he might have behaved upon that occasion, he
+does not seem to have been of a temper to trust fortune too much or too
+often with his safety; therefore it is that, in order to keep the event in
+his own hands, he loads the Die, in the present case, with villainy and
+deceit: The event however he piously ascribes, like a wise and prudent
+youth as he is, without paying that worship to himself which he so justly
+merits, to the special favour and interposition of Heaven.
+
+
+    "Strike up your drums, pursue the scattered stray.
+    Heaven, and not we, have safely fought to-day."
+
+
+But the profane _Falstaff_, on the contrary, less informed and less
+studious of supernatural things, imputes the whole of this conduct to thin
+potations, and the not drinking largely of good and excellent _sherris_;
+and so little doubt does he seem to entertain of the Cowardice and ill
+disposition of this youth, that he stands devising causes, and casting
+about for an hypothesis on which the whole may be physically explained and
+accounted for;--but I shall leave him and Doctor _Cadogan_ to settle that
+point as they may.
+
+The only serious charge against _Falstaff_'s Courage, we have now at large
+examined; it came from great authority, from the Commander in chief, and
+was meant as chastisement and rebuke; but it appears to have been founded
+in ill-will, in the particular character of _Lancaster_, and in the
+wantonness and insolence of power; and the author has placed near, and
+under our notice, full and ample proofs of its injustice.--And thus the
+deeper we look unto _Falstaff_'s character, the stronger is our conviction
+that he was not intended to be shewn as a Constitutional coward: Censure
+cannot lay sufficient hold on him,--and even malice turns away, and more
+than half pronounces his acquittal.
+
+But as yet we have dealt principally in parole and circumstantial
+evidence, and have referred to _Fact_ only incidentally. But _Facts_ have
+a much more operative influence: They may be produced, not as arguments
+only, but Records; not to dispute alone, but to decide.--It is time then to
+behold _Falstaff_ in actual service as a soldier, in danger, and in
+battle. We have already displayed one fact in his defence against the
+censure of _Lancaster_; a fact extremely unequivocal and decisive. But the
+reader knows I have others, and doubtless goes before me to the action at
+_Shrewsbury_. In the midst and in the heat of battle we see him come
+forwards;--what are his words? "_I have led my Rag-o-muffians where they
+are peppered; there's not three of my hundred and fifty left alive._" But
+to _whom_ does he say this? To himself only; he speaks _in soliloquy_.
+There is no questioning the fact, _he had_ led _them_; _they were
+peppered_; _there were not __THREE__ left alive._ He was in luck, being in
+bulk equal to any two of them, to escape unhurt. Let the author answer for
+that, I have nothing to do with it: He was the Poetic maker of the whole
+_Corps_, and he might dispose of them as he pleased. Well might the Chief
+justice, as we now find, acknowledge _Falstaff_'s services in this day's
+battle; an acknowledgment which amply confirms the fact. A Modern officer,
+who had performed a feat of this kind, would expect, not only the praise
+of having done his duty, but the appellation of a hero. But poor
+_Falstaff_ has too much wit to thrive: In spite of probability, in spite
+of inference, in spite of fact, he must be a Coward still. He happens
+unfortunately to have more Wit than Courage, and therefore we are
+maliciously determined that he shall have no Courage at all. But let us
+suppose that his modes of expression, even _in soliloquy_, will admit of
+some abatement;--how much shall we abate? Say that he brought off _fifty_
+instead of _three_; yet a Modern captain would be apt to look big after an
+action with two thirds of his men, as it were, in his belly. Surely
+_Shakespeare_ never meant to exhibit this man as a Constitutional coward;
+if he did, his means were sadly destructive of his end. We see him, after
+he had expended his Rag-o-muffians, with sword and target in the midst of
+battle, in perfect possession of himself, and replete with humour and
+jocularity. He was, I presume, in some immediate personal danger, in
+danger also of a general defeat; too corpulent for flight; and to be led a
+prisoner was probably to be led to execution; yet we see him laughing and
+easy, offering a bottle of sack to the Prince instead of a pistol,
+punning, and telling him, "_there was that which would __SACK__ a
+city._"--"_What, is it a time_," says the Prince "_to jest and dally now?_"
+No, a sober character would not jest on such an occasion, but a Coward
+could not; he would neither have the inclination, or the power. And what
+could support _Falstaff_ in such a situation? Not principle; he is not
+suspected of the Point of honour; he seems indeed fairly to renounce it.
+"_Honour cannot set a leg or an arm; it has no skill in surgery:--What is
+it? a word only; meer air. It is insensible to the dead; and detraction
+will not let __ it live with the living._" What then but a strong natural
+constitutional Courage, which nothing could extinguish or dismay?--In the
+following passages the true character of _Falstaff_ as to Courage and
+Principle is finely touched, and the different colours at once nicely
+blended and distinguished. "_If Percy be alive, I'll __PIERCE__ him. If he
+do come in my way, __SO__:--If he do not, if I come in __HIS__ willingly,
+let him make a Carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir
+Walter hath; give me life; which if I can save, __SO__; if not, honour
+comes unlook'd for, and there's an end._" One cannot say which prevails
+most here, profligacy or courage; they are both tinged alike by the same
+humour, and mingled in one common mass; yet when we consider the superior
+force of _Percy_, as we must presently also that of _Douglas_, we shall be
+apt, I believe, in our secret heart, to forgive him. These passages are
+spoken in soliloquy and in battle: If every soliloquy made under similar
+circumstances were as audible as _Falstaff_'s, the imputation might
+perhaps be found too general for censure. These are among the passages
+that have impressed on the world an idea of Cowardice in _Falstaff_;--yet
+why? He is resolute to take his fate: If _Percy_ do come in his way,
+_so_;--if not, he will not seek inevitable destruction; he is willing to
+save his life, but if that cannot be, why,--"honour comes unlook'd for, and
+there's an end." This surely is not the language of Cowardice: It contains
+neither the Bounce or Whine of the character; he derides, it is true, and
+seems to renounce that grinning idol of Military zealots, _Honour_. But
+_Falstaff_ has a kind of Military free-thinker, and has accordingly
+incurred the obloquy of his condition. He stands upon the ground of
+natural Courage only and common sense, and has, it seems, too much wit for
+a hero.--But let me be well understood;--I do not justify _Falstaff_ for
+renouncing the point of honour; it proceeded doubtless from a general
+relaxation of mind, and profligacy of temper. Honour is calculated to aid
+and strengthen natural courage, and lift it up to heroism; but natural
+courage, which can act as such without honour, is natural courage still;
+the very quality I wish to maintain to _Falstaff_. And if, without the aid
+of honour, he can act with firmness, his portion is only the more eminent
+and distinguished. In such a character, it is to his actions, not his
+sentiments, that we are to look for conviction. But it may be still
+further urged in behalf of _Falstaff_, that there may be false honour as
+well as false religion. It is true; yet even in that case candour obliges
+me to confess that the best men are most disposed to conform, and most
+likely to become the dupes of their own virtue. But it may however be more
+reasonably urged that there are particular tenets both in honour and
+religion, which it is the grossness of folly not to question. To seek out,
+to court assured destruction, without leaving a single benefit behind, may
+be well reckoned in the number: And this is precisely the very folly which
+_Falstaff_ seems to abjure;--nor are we, perhaps, intitled to say more, in
+the way of censure, than that he had not virtue enough to become the dupe
+of honour, nor prudence enough to hold his tongue. I am willing however,
+if the reader pleases, to compound this matter, and acknowledge, on my
+part, that _Falstaff_ was in all respects the _old soldier_; that he had
+put himself under the sober discipline of discretion, and renounced, in a
+great degree at least, what he might call the Vanities and Superstitions
+of honour; if the reader will, on his part, admit that this might well be,
+without his renouncing, at the same time, the natural firmness and
+resolution he was born to.
+
+But there is a formidable objection behind. _Falstaff_ counterfeits basely
+on being attacked by _Douglas_; he assumes, in a cowardly spirit, the
+appearance of death to avoid the reality. But there was no equality of
+force; not the least chance for victory, or life. And is it the duty then,
+_think we still_, of true Courage, to meet, without benefit to society,
+_certain death_? Or is it only the phantasy of honour?--But such a fiction
+is highly disgraceful;--true, and a man of nice honour might perhaps have
+_grinned_ for it. But we must remember that _Falstaff_ had a double
+character; he was a _wit_ as well as a _soldier_; and his Courage, however
+eminent, was but the _accessary_; his wit was the _principal_; and the
+part, which, if they should come in competition, he had the greatest
+interest in maintaining. Vain indeed were the licentiousness of his
+principles, if he should seek death like a bigot, yet without the meed of
+honour; when he might live by wit, and encrease the reputation of that wit
+by living. But why do I labour this point? It has been already
+anticipated, and our improved acquaintance with _Falstaff_ will now
+require no more than a short narrative of the fact.
+
+Whilst in the battle of _Shrewsbury_ he is exhorting and encouraging the
+Prince who is engaged with the _Spirit Percy_--"_Well said Hal, to him
+Hal_,"--he is himself attacked by the _Fiend Douglas_. There was no match;
+nothing remained but death or stratagem; grinning honour, or laughing
+life. But an expedient offers, a mirthful one,--Take your choice
+_Falstaff_, a point of honour, or a point of drollery.--It could not be a
+question;--_Falstaff_ falls, _Douglas_ is cheated, and the world laughs.
+But does he fall like a Coward? No, like a buffoon only; the superior
+principle prevails, and _Falstaff_ lives by a stratagem growing out of his
+character, to prove himself _no counterfeit_, to jest, to be employed, and
+to fight again. That _Falstaff_ valued himself, and expected to be valued
+by others, upon this piece of saving wit, is plain. It was a stratagem, it
+is true; it argued presence of mind; but it was moreover, what he most
+liked, a very laughable joke; and as such he considers it; for he
+continues to counterfeit after the danger is over, that he may also
+deceive the Prince, and improve the event into more laughter. He might,
+for ought that appears, have concealed the transaction; the Prince was too
+earnestly engaged for observation; he might have formed a thousand excuses
+for his fall; but he lies still and listens to the pronouncing of his
+epitaph by the Prince with all the waggish glee and levity of his
+character. The circumstance of his wounding _Percy_ in the thigh, and
+carrying the dead body on his back like luggage, is _indecent_ but not
+cowardly. The declaring, though in jest, that he killed _Percy_, seems to
+me _idle_, but it is not meant or calculated for _imposition_; it is
+spoken to the _Prince himself_, the man in the world who could not be, or
+be supposed to be, imposed on. But we must hear, whether to the purpose or
+not, what it is that _Harry_ has to say over the remains of his old
+friend.
+
+
+    _P. Hen._ What, old acquaintance! could not all this flesh
+    Keep in a little life? Poor _Jack_, farewell!
+    I could have better spared a better man.
+    Oh! I shou'd have a heavy miss of thee,
+    If I were much in love with vanity.
+    Death hath not struck so fat a _deer_ to-day,
+    Tho' many a _dearer_ in this bloody fray;
+    Imbowelled will I see thee by and by;
+    Till then, in blood by noble _Percy_ lye.
+
+
+This is wonderfully proper for the occasion; it is affectionate, it is
+pathetic, yet it remembers his vanities, and, with a faint gleam of
+recollected mirth, even his plumpness and corpulency; but it is a
+pleasantry softned and rendered even vapid by tenderness, and it goes off
+in the sickly effort of a miserable pun.(47)--But to our immediate
+purpose,--why is not his Cowardice remembered too? what, no surprize that
+_Falstaff_ should lye by the side of the noble _Percy_ in the bed of
+honour! No reflection that flight, though unfettered by disease, could not
+avail; that fear could not find a subterfuge from death? Shall his
+corpulency and his vanities be recorded, and his more characteristic
+quality of Cowardice, even in the moment that it particularly demanded
+notice and reflection, be forgotten? If by sparing a better man be here
+meant a _better soldier_, there is no doubt but there were better Soldiers
+in the army, more active, more young, more principled, more knowing; but
+none, it seems, taken for all in all, more acceptable. The comparative
+_better_ used here leaves to _Falstaff_ the praise at least of _good_; and
+to be a good soldier, is to be a great way from Coward. But _Falstaff_'s
+goodness, in this sort, appears to have been not only enough to redeem him
+from disgrace, but to mark him with reputation; if I was to add with
+_eminence_ and _distinction_, the funeral honours which are intended his
+obsequies, and his being bid, till then, _to lye in blood by the noble
+Percy_, would fairly bear me out.
+
+Upon the whole of the passages yet before us, why may I not reasonably
+hope that the good natured reader (and I write to no other), not offended
+at the levity of this exercise, may join with me in thinking that the
+character of _Falstaff_, as to valour, may be fairly and honestly summed
+up in the very words which he himself uses to _Harry_; and which seem, as
+to this point, to be intended by _Shakespeare_ as a _Compendium_ of his
+character. "_What_," says the Prince, "_a Coward, Sir John Paunch!_"
+_Falstaff_ replies, "_Indeed I am not __JOHN OF GAUNT__ your grandfather,
+but yet __NO COWARD__, Hal._"
+
+The robbery at _Gads-Hill_ comes now to be considered. But _here_, after
+such long argumentation, we may be allowed to breath a little.
+
+I know not what Impression has been made on the reader; a good deal of
+evidence has been produced, and much more remains to be offered. But how
+many sorts of men are there whom no evidence can persuade! How many, who,
+ignorant of _Shakespeare_, or forgetful of the text, may as well read
+heathen Greek, or the laws of the land, as this unfortunate Commentary?
+How many, who, proud and pedantic, hate all novelty, and damn it without
+mercy under one compendious word, Paradox? How many more, who, not
+deriving their opinions immediately from the sovereignty of reason, hold
+at the will of some superior lord, to whom accident or inclination has
+attached them, and who, true to their vassalage, are resolute not to
+surrender, without express permission, their base and ill-gotten
+possessions. These, however habited, are the mob of mankind, who hoot and
+holla, hiss or huzza, just as their various leaders may direct. I
+_challenge_ the whole Pannel as not holding by free tenure, and therefore
+not competent to the purpose either of condemnation or acquittal. But to
+the men of very nice honour what shall be said? I speak not of your men of
+good service, but such as Mr. ---- "_Souls made of fire_, and _children of
+the sun_." These gentlemen, I am sadly afraid, cannot in honour or
+prudence admit of any composition in the very nice article of Courage;
+_suspicion_ is _disgrace_, and they cannot stay to parley with dishonour.
+The misfortune in cases of this kind is that it is not easy to obtain a
+fair and impartial Jury: When we censure others with an eye to our own
+applause, we are as seldom sparing of reproach, as inquisitive into
+circumstance; and bold is the man who, tenacious of justice, shall venture
+to weigh circumstances, or draw lines of distinction between Cowardice and
+any apparently similar or neighbour quality: As well may a lady, virgin or
+matron, of immaculate honour, presume to pity or palliate the soft failing
+of some unguarded friend, and thereby confess, as it were, those
+sympathetic feelings which it behoves her to conceal under the most
+contemptuous disdain; a disdain, always proportioned, I believe, to a
+certain consciousness which we must not explain. I am afraid that poor
+_Falstaff_ has suffered not a little, and may yet suffer by this
+fastidiousness of temper. But though we may find these classes of men
+rather unfavourable to our wishes, the Ladies, one may hope, whose smiles
+are most worth our ambition, may be found more propitious; yet they too,
+through a generous conformity to the _brave_, are apt to take up the high
+tone of honour. Heroism is an idea perfectly conformable to the natural
+delicacy and elevation of their minds. Should we be fortunate enough
+therefore to redeem _Falstaff_ from the imputations of Cowardice, yet
+plain Courage, I am afraid, will not serve the turn: Even their heroes, I
+think, must be for the most part in the bloom of youth, or _just where
+youth ends, in manhood's freshest prime_; but to be "_Old, cold, and of
+intolerable entrails; to be fat and greasy; as poor as Job, and as
+slanderous as Satan_";--Take him away, he merits not a fair trial; he is
+too offensive to be turned, too odious to be touched. I grant, indeed,
+that the subject of our lecture is not without his infirmity; "_He cuts
+three inches on the ribs, he was short-winded_," and his breath possibly
+not of the sweetest. "_He had the gout_," or something worse, "_which
+played the rogue with his great toe._"--But these considerations are not to
+the point; we shall conceal, as much as may be, these offences; our
+business is with his _heart_ only, which, as we shall endeavour to
+demonstrate, lies in the right place, and is firm and sound,
+notwithstanding a few indications to the contrary.--As for you, _Mrs._
+MONTAGUE, I am grieved to find that _you_ have been involved in a popular
+error; so much you must allow me to say;--for the rest, I bow to your
+genius and your virtues: You have given to the world a very elegant
+composition; and I am told your manners and your mind are yet more pure,
+more elegant than your book. _Falstaff_ was too gross, too infirm, for
+your inspection; but if you durst have looked nearer, you would not have
+found Cowardice in the number of his infirmities.--We will try if we cannot
+redeem him from this universal censure.--Let the venal corporation of
+authors duck _to the golden fool_, let them shape their sordid quills to
+the mercenary ends of unmerited praise, or of baser detraction;--_old
+Jack_, though deserted by princes, though censured by an ungrateful world,
+and persecuted from age to age by Critic and Commentator, and though never
+rich enough to hire one literary prostitute, shall find a Voluntary
+defender; and that too at a time when the whole body of the _Nabobry_
+demands and requires defence; whilst their ill-gotten and almost untold
+gold feels loose in their unassured grasp, and whilst they are ready to
+shake off portions of the enormous heap, that they may the more securely
+clasp the remainder.--But not to digress without end,--to the candid, to the
+chearful, to the elegant reader we appeal; our exercise is much too light
+for the sour eye of strict severity; it professes amusement only, but we
+hope of a kind more rational than the History of Miss _Betsy_, eked out
+with the Story of Miss _Lucy_, and the Tale of Mr. _Twankum_: And so, in a
+leisure hour, and with the good natured reader, it may be hoped, to
+friend, we return, with an air as busy and important as if we were engaged
+in the grave office of measuring the _Pyramids_, or settling the antiquity
+of _Stonehenge_, to converse with this jovial, this fat, this roguish,
+this frail, but, I think, _not cowardly_ companion.
+
+Though the robbery at _Gads-Hill_, and the supposed Cowardice of
+_Falstaff_ on that occasion, are next to be considered, yet I must
+previously declare, that I think the discussion of this matter to be _now_
+unessential to the reestablishment of _Falstaff_'s reputation as a man of
+Courage. For suppose we should grant, in form, that _Falstaff_ was
+surprized with fear in this single instance, that he was off his guard,
+and even acted like a Coward; what will follow, but that _Falstaff_, like
+greater heroes, had his weak moment, and was not exempted from panic and
+surprize? If a single exception can destroy a general character, _Hector_
+was a _Coward_, and _Anthony_ a _Poltroon_. But for these seeming
+contradictions of Character we shall seldom be at a loss to account, if we
+carefully refer to circumstance and situation.--In the present instance,
+_Falstaff_ had done an illegal act; the exertion was over; and he had
+unbent his mind in security. The spirit of enterprize, and the animating
+principle of hope, were withdrawn:--In this situation, he is unexpectedly
+attacked; he has no time to recall his thoughts, or bend his mind to
+action. He is not now acting in the Profession and in the Habits of a
+Soldier; he is associated with known Cowards; his assailants are vigorous,
+sudden, and bold; he is conscious of guilt; he has dangers to dread of
+every form, present and future; prisons and gibbets, as well as sword and
+fire; he is surrounded with darkness, and the Sheriff, the Hangman, and
+the whole _Posse Commitatus_ may be at his heels:--Without a moment for
+reflection, is it wonderful that, under these circumstances, "_he should
+run and roar, and carry his guts away with as much dexterity as
+possible_"?
+
+But though I might well rest the question on this ground, yet as there
+remains many good topics of vindication, and as I think a more minute
+inquiry into this matter will only bring out more evidence in support of
+_Falstaff_'s constitutional Courage, I will not decline the discussion. I
+beg permission therefore to state fully, as well as fairly, the whole of
+this obnoxious transaction, this unfortunate robbery at _Gads-Hill_.
+
+In the scene wherein we become first acquainted with _Falstaff_, his
+character is opened in a manner worthy of _Shakespeare_: We see him in a
+green old age, mellow, frank, gay, easy, corpulent, loose, unprincipled,
+and luxurious; a _Robber_, as he says, _by his vocation_; yet not
+altogether so:--There was much, it seems, of mirth and _recreation_ in the
+case: "_The poor abuses of the times_," he wantonly and humourously tells
+the Prince, "_want countenance; and he hates to see resolution fobbed off,
+as it is, by the rusty curb of old father antic, the law_."--When he quits
+the scene, we are acquainted that he is only passing to the Tavern:
+"_Farewell,_" says he, with an air of careless jollity and gay content,
+"_You will find me in East-Cheap._" "_Farewell,_" says the Prince, "_thou
+latter __ spring; farewell, all-hallown summer._" But though all this is
+excellent for _Shakespeare_'s purposes, we find, as yet at least, no hint
+of _Falstaff_'s Cowardice, no appearance of Braggadocio, or any
+preparation whatever for laughter under this head.--The instant _Falstaff_
+is withdrawn, _Poins_ opens to the Prince his meditated scheme of a double
+robbery; and here then we may reasonably expect to be let into these parts
+of _Falstaff_'s character.--We shall see.
+
+Poins. "_Now my good sweet lord, ride with us tomorrow; I have a jest to
+execute that I cannot manage alone. __FALSTAFF__, __BARDOLPH__, __PETO__,
+and __GADSHILL__ shall rob those men that we have already waylaid;
+yourself and I will not be there; and when they have the booty, if you and
+I do not rob them, cut this head from off my shoulders._"
+
+This is giving strong surety for his words; perhaps he thought the case
+required it: "_But how_," says the Prince, "_shall we part with them in
+setting forth?_" _Poins_ is ready with his answer; he had matured the
+thought, and could solve every difficulty:--"_They could set out before, or
+after; their horses might be tied in the wood; they could change their
+visors; and he had already procured cases of __BUCKRAM__ to inmask their
+outward garments._" This was going far; it was doing business in good
+earnest. But if we look into the Play we shall be better able to account
+for this activity; we shall find that there was at least as much malice as
+jest in _Poins_'s intention. The rival situations of _Poins_ and
+_Falstaff_ had produced on both sides much jealousy and ill will, which
+occasionally appears, in _Shakespeare_'s manner, by side lights, without
+confounding the main action; and by the little we see of this _Poins_, he
+appears to be an unamiable, if not a very brutish and bad, character.--But
+to pass this;--the Prince next says, with a deliberate and wholesome
+caution, "_I doubt they will be too hard for us._" _Poins_'s reply is
+remarkable; "_Well, for __TWO__ of them, I know them to be as true bred
+Cowards as ever turned back; and for the __THIRD__, if he fights longer
+than he sees cause, I will forswear arms._" There is in this reply a great
+deal of management: There were _four_ persons in all, as _Poins_ well
+knew, and he had himself, but a little before, named them,--_Falstaff_,
+_Bardolph_, _Peto_, and _Gadshill_; but now he omits one of the number,
+which must be either _Falstaff_, as not subject to any imputation in point
+of Courage; and in that case _Peto_ will be the _third_;--or, as I rather
+think, in order to diminish the force of the Prince's objection, he
+artfully drops _Gadshill_, who was then out of town, and might therefore
+be supposed to be less in the Prince's notice; and upon this supposition
+_Falstaff_ will be the _third, who will not fight longer than he sees
+reason_. But on either supposition, what evidence is there of a
+pre-supposed Cowardice in _Falstaff_? On the contrary, what stronger
+evidence can we require that the Courage of _Falstaff_ had to this hour,
+through various trials, stood wholly unimpeached, than that _Poins_, the
+ill-disposed _Poins_, who ventures, for his own purposes, to steal, as it
+were, _one_ of the _four_ from the notice and memory of the Prince, and
+who shews himself, from worse motives, as skilfull in _diminishing_ as
+_Falstaff_ appears afterwards to be in _increasing_ of numbers, than that
+this very _Poins_ should not venture to put down _Falstaff_ in the list of
+Cowards; though the occasion so strongly required that he should be
+degraded. What _Poins_ dares do however in this sort, he _does_. "_As to
+the third_," for so he describes _Falstaff_ (as if the name of this
+Veteran would have excited too strongly the ideas of Courage and
+resistance), "_if he fights longer than he sees reason, I will forswear
+arms._" This is the old trick of cautious and artful malice: The turn of
+expression, or the tone of voice does all; for as to the words themselves,
+simply considered, they might be now truly spoken of almost any man who
+ever lived, except the iron-headed hero of _Sweden_.--But _Poins_ however
+adds something, which may appear more decisive; "_The virtue of this jest
+will be the incomprehensible lyes which this fat rogue will tell when we
+meet at supper; how thirty at least he fought with; and what wards, what
+blows, what extremities, he endured: And in the reproof of this lies the
+jest_":--Yes, and the _malice_ too.--This prediction was unfortunately
+fulfilled, even beyond the letter of it; a completion more incident,
+perhaps, to the predictions of malice than of affection. But we shall
+presently see how far either the prediction, or the event, will go to the
+impeachment of _Falstaff_'s Courage.--The Prince, who is never duped,
+comprehends the whole of _Poins_'s views. But let that pass.
+
+In the next scene we behold all the parties at _Gads-Hill_ in preparation
+for the robbery. Let us carefully examine if it contains any intimation of
+Cowardice in _Falstaff_. He is shewn under a very ridiculous vexation
+about his horse, which is hid from him; but this is nothing to the
+purpose, or only proves that _Falstaff_ knew no terror equal to that of
+walking _eight yards of uneven ground_. But on occasion of _Gadshill_'s
+being asked concerning the number of the travellers, and having reported
+that they were eight or ten, _Falstaff_ exclaims, "_Zounds! will they not
+rob us!_" If he had said more seriously, "_I doubt they will be too hard
+for us_,"--he would then have only used the Prince's own words upon a less
+alarming occasion. This cannot need defence. But the Prince, in his usual
+stile of mirth, replies, "_What a Coward, Sir John Paunch!_" To this one
+would naturally expect from _Falstaff_ some light answer; but we are
+surprized with a very serious one;--"_I am not indeed __JOHN OF GAUNT__
+your grandfather, but yet no __COWARD__, __HAL__._" This is singular: It
+contains, I think, the true character of _Falstaff_; and it seems to be
+thrown out _here_, at a very critical conjuncture, as a caution to the
+audience not to take too sadly what was intended only (to use the Prince's
+words) "_as argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for
+ever after_." The whole of _Falstaff_'s past life could not, it should
+seem, furnish the Prince with a reply, and he is, therefore, obliged to
+draw upon the coming hope. "_Well_," says he, _mysteriously_, "_let the
+event try_"; meaning the event of the concerted attack on _Falstaff_; an
+event so probable, that he might indeed venture to rely on it.--But the
+travellers approach: The Prince hastily proposes a division of strength;
+that he with _Poins_ should take a station separate from the rest, so that
+if the travellers should escape one party, they might light on the other:
+_Falstaff_ does not object, though he supposes the travellers to be eight
+or ten in number. We next see _Falstaff_ attack these travellers with
+alacrity, using the accustomed words of threat and terror;--they make no
+resistance, and he binds and robs them.
+
+Hitherto I think there has not appeared the least _trait_ either of boast
+or fear in _Falstaff_. But now comes on the concerted transaction, which
+has been the source of so much dishonour. _As they are sharing the booty_
+(says the stage direction) _the Prince and __POINS__ set upon them, they
+all run away; and __FALSTAFF__ after a blow or two runs away too, leaving
+the booty behind them._--"_Got with much ease,_" says the Prince, as an
+event beyond expectation, "_Now merrily to horse._"--Poins adds, as they
+are going off, "_How the rogue roared!_" This observation is afterwards
+remembered by the Prince, who, urging the jest to _Falstaff_, says,
+doubtless with all the licence of exaggeration,--"_And you, __FALSTAFF__,
+carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for
+mercy, and still ran and roared, as I ever heard bull-calf._" If he did
+roar for mercy, it must have been a very inarticulate sort of roaring; for
+there is not a single word set down for _Falstaff_ from which this roaring
+may be inferred, or any stage direction to the actor for that purpose:
+But, in the spirit of mirth and derision, the lightest exclamation might
+be easily converted into the roar of a bull-calf.
+
+We have now gone through this transaction considered simply on its own
+circumstances, and without reference to any future boast or imputation. It
+is upon these circumstances the case must be tried, and every colour
+subsequently thrown upon it, either by wit or folly, ought to be
+discharged. Take it, then, as it stands hitherto, with reference only to
+its own preceding and concomitant circumstances, and to the unbounded
+ability of _Shakespeare_ to obtain his own ends, and we must, I think, be
+compelled to confess that this transaction was never intended by
+_Shakespeare_ to detect and expose the false pretences of a real Coward;
+but, on the contrary, to involve a man of allowed Courage, though in other
+respects of a very peculiar character, in such circumstances and
+suspicions of Cowardice as might, by the operation of those peculiarities,
+produce afterwards much temporary mirth among his familiar and intimate
+companions: Of this we cannot require a stronger proof than the great
+attention which is paid to the decorum and truth of character in the stage
+direction already quoted: It appears, from thence, that it was not thought
+_decent_ that _Falstaff_ should run at all, until he had been deserted by
+his companions, and had even afterwards exchanged blows with his
+assailants;--and thus, a just distinction is kept up between the natural
+Cowardice of the three associates and the accidental Terror of _Falstaff_.
+
+Hitherto, then, I think it is very clear that no laughter either is, or is
+intended to be, raised upon the score of _Falstaff_'s Cowardice. For after
+all, it is not singularly ridiculous that an old inactive man of no boast,
+as far as appears, or extraordinary pretensions to valour, should
+endeavour to save himself by flight from the assault of two bold and
+vigorous assailants. The very Players, who are, I think, the very worst
+judges of _Shakespeare_, have been made sensible, I suppose from long
+experience, that there is nothing in this transaction to excite any
+extraordinary laughter; but this they take to be a defect in the
+management of their author, and therefore I imagine it is, that they hold
+themselves obliged to supply the vacancy, and fill it up with some low
+buffoonery of their own. Instead of the dispatch necessary on this
+occasion, they bring _Falstaff_, _stuffing and all_, to the very front of
+the stage; where, with much mummery and grimace, he seats himself down,
+with a canvas money-bag in his hand, to divide the spoil. In this
+situation he is attacked by the Prince and _Poins_, whose tin swords hang
+idly in the air and delay to strike till the _Player Falstaff_, who seems
+more troubled with flatulence than fear, is able to rise: which is not
+till after some ineffectual efforts, and with the assistance (to the best
+of my memory) of one of the thieves, who lingers behind, in spite of
+terror, for this friendly purpose; after which, without any resistance on
+his part, he is goaded off the stage like a fat ox for slaughter by these
+_stony-hearted_ drivers in _buckram_. I think he does not _roar_;--perhaps
+the player had never perfected himself in the tones of a bull-calf. This
+whole transaction should be shewn between the interstices of a back scene:
+The less we see in such cases, the better we conceive. Something of
+resistance and afterwards of celerity in flight we should be made
+witnesses of; the _roar_ we should take on the credit of _Poins_. Nor is
+there any occasion for all that bolstering with which they fill up the
+figure of _Falstaff_; they do not distinguish betwixt humourous
+exaggeration and necessary truth. The Prince is called _starveling_,
+_dried neat's tongue_, _stock-fish_, and other names of the same nature.
+They might with almost as good reason search the glass-houses for some
+exhausted stoker to furnish out a Prince of _Wales_ of sufficient
+correspondence to this picture.
+
+We next come to the scene of _Falstaff_'s braggadocioes. I have already
+wandered too much into details; yet I must, however, bring _Falstaff_
+forward to this last scene of trial in all his proper colouring and
+proportions. The progressive discovery of _Falstaff_'s character is
+excellently managed.--In the first scene we become acquainted with his
+figure, which we must in some degree consider as a part of his character;
+we hear of his gluttony and his debaucheries, and become witnesses of that
+indistinguishable mixture of humour and licentiousness which runs through
+his whole character; but what we are principally struck with, is the ease
+of his manners and deportment, and the unaffected freedom and wonderful
+pregnancy of his wit and humour. We see him, in the next scene, agitated
+with vexation: His horse is concealed from him, and he gives on this
+occasion so striking a description of his distress, and his words so
+labour and are so loaded with heat and vapour, that, but for laughing, we
+should pity him; laugh, however, we must at the extreme incongruity of a
+man, at once corpulent and old, associating with youth in an enterprize
+demanding the utmost extravagance of spirit, and all the wildness of
+activity: And this it is which make his complaints so truly ridiculous.
+"_Give me my horse!_" says he, in another spirit than that of _Richard_;
+"_Eight yards of uneven ground_," adds this _Forrester of Diana_, this
+_enterprising gentleman of the shade_, "_is threescore and ten miles
+__A-FOOT__ with me._"--In the heat and agitation of the robbery, out comes
+more and more extravagant instances of incongruity. Though he is most
+probably older and much fatter than either of the travellers, yet he calls
+them, _Bacons, Bacon-fed, and gorbellied knaves_: "_Hang them_," says he,
+"_fat chuffs, they hate us youth: What! young men, must live:--You are
+grand Jurors, are ye? We'll jure ye, i' faith._" But, as yet, we do not
+see the whole length and breadth of him: This is reserved for the
+braggadocio scene. We expect entertainment, but we don't well know of what
+kind. _Poins_, by his prediction, has given us a hint: But we do not see
+or feel _Falstaff_ to be a Coward, much less a boaster; without which even
+Cowardice is not sufficiently ridiculous; and therefore it is, that on the
+stage we find them always connected. In this uncertainty on our part, he
+is, with much artful preparation, produced.--His entrance is delayed to
+stimulate our expectation; and, at last, to take off the dullness of
+anticipation, and to add surprize to pleasure, he is called in, as if for
+another purpose of mirth than what we are furnished with: We now behold
+him, fluctuating with fiction, and labouring with dissembled passion and
+chagrin: Too full for utterance, _Poins_ provokes him by a few simple
+words, containing a fine contrast of affected ease,--"_Welcome, __JACK__,
+where hast thou been?_" But when we hear him burst forth, "_A plague on
+all Cowards! Give me a cup of sack. Is there no virtue extant!_"--We are at
+once in possession of the whole man, and are ready to hug him, guts, lyes
+and all, as an inexhaustible fund of pleasantry and humour. _Cowardice_, I
+apprehend, is out of our thought; it does not, I think, mingle in our
+mirth. As to this point, I have presumed to say already, and I repeat it,
+that we are, in my opinion, the dupes of our own wisdom, of systematic
+reasoning, of second thought, and after reflection. The first spectators,
+I believe, thought of nothing but the laughable scrape which so singular a
+character was falling into, and were delighted to see a humourous and
+unprincipled wit so happily taken in his own inventions, precluded from
+all rational defence, and driven to the necessity of crying out, after a
+few ludicrous evasions, "_No more of that, __HAL__, if thou lov'st me._"
+
+I do not conceive myself obliged to enter into a consideration of
+_Falstaff_'s lyes concerning the transaction at _Gad's-Hill_. I have
+considered his conduct as independent of those lyes; I have examined the
+whole of it apart, and found it free of Cowardice or fear, except in one
+instance, which I have endeavoured to account for and excuse. I have
+therefore a right to infer that those lyes are to be derived, not from
+Cowardice, but from some other part of his character, which it does not
+concern me to examine: But I have not contented myself hitherto with this
+sort of negative defence; and the reader I believe is aware that I am
+resolute (though I confess not untired) to carry this fat rogue out of the
+reach of every imputation which affects, or may seem to affect, his
+natural Courage.
+
+The first observation then which strikes us, as to his braggadocioes, is,
+that they are braggadocioes _after the fact_. In other cases we see the
+Coward of the Play bluster and boast for a time, talk of distant wars, and
+private duels, out of the reach of knowledge and of evidence; of storms
+and stratagems, and of falling in upon the enemy pell-mell and putting
+thousands to the sword; till, at length, on the proof of some present and
+apparent fact, he is brought to open and _lasting_ shame; to shame I mean
+as a _Coward_; for as to what there is of _lyar_ in the case, it is
+considered only as accessory, and scarcely reckoned into the account of
+dishonour.--But in the instance before us, every thing is reversed: The
+Play opens with the _Fact_; a Fact, from its circumstances as well as from
+the age and inactivity of the man, very excusable and capable of much
+apology, if not of defence. This Fact is preceded by no bluster or
+pretence whatever;--the lyes and braggadocioes follow; but they are not
+_general_; they are confined and have reference to this one Fact only; the
+detection is _immediate_; and after some accompanying mirth and laughter,
+the shame of that detection ends; it has no _duration_, as in other cases;
+and, for the rest of the Play, the character stands just where it did
+before, _without any punishment or degradation whatever_.
+
+To account for all this, let us only suppose that _Falstaff_ was a man of
+natural Courage, though in all respects unprincipled; but that he was
+surprized in one single instance into an act of real terror; which,
+instead of excusing upon circumstances, he endeavours to cover by lyes and
+braggadocio; and that these lyes become thereupon the subject, in this
+place, of detection. Upon these suppositions the whole difficulty will
+vanish at once, and every thing be natural, common, and plain. The _Fact_
+itself will be of course _excusable_; that is, it will arise out of a
+combination of such circumstances as, being applicable to one case only,
+will not destroy the general character: It will not be _preceded_ by any
+braggadocio, containing any fair indication of Cowardice; as real
+Cowardice is not supposed to exist in the character. But the first act of
+real or apparent Cowardice would naturally throw a vain unprincipled man
+into the use of lyes and braggadocio; but these would have reference only
+to the _Fact in question_, and not apply to other cases or infect his
+general character, which is not supposed to stand in need of imposition.
+Again,--the detection of Cowardice, as such, is more diverting after a long
+and various course of Pretence, where the lye of character is preserved,
+as it were, whole, and brought into sufficient magnitude for a burst of
+discovery; yet, mere occasional lyes, such as _Falstaff_ is hereby
+supposed to utter, are, for the purpose of sport, best detected in the
+telling; because, indeed, they cannot be preserved for a future time; the
+exigence and the humour will be past: But the _shame_ arising to
+_Falstaff_ from the detection of _mere lyes_ would be _temporary only_;
+his character as to this point, being already known, and _tolerated for
+the humour_. Nothing, therefore, could follow but mirth and laughter, and
+the temporary triumph of baffling a wit at his own weapons, and reducing
+him to an absolute surrender: After which, we ought not to be surprized if
+we see him rise again, like a boy from play, and run another race with as
+little dishonour as before.
+
+What then can we say, but that it is clearly the lyes only, not the
+_Cowardice_, of _Falstaff_ which are here detected: _Lyes_, to which what
+there may be of Cowardice is incidental only, improving indeed the Jest,
+but by no means the real Business of the scene.--And now also we may more
+clearly discern the true force and meaning of _Poin_'s prediction. "_The
+Jest will be_," says he, "_the incomprehensible Lyes that this fat rogue
+will tell us: How thirty at least he fought with:--and in the reproof of
+this lyes the jest_"; That is, in the detection of these lyes _simply_;
+for as to _Courage_, he had never ventured to insinuate more than that
+_Falstaff_ would not fight longer than he saw cause: _Poins_ was in
+expectation indeed that _Falstaff_ would fall into some dishonour on this
+occasion; an event highly probable: But this was not, it seems, to be the
+principal ground of their mirth, but the detection of those
+_incomprehensible lyes_, which he boldly predicts, upon his knowledge of
+_Falstaff_'s character, this _fat rogue_, not _Coward_, would tell them.
+This prediction therefore, and the completion of it, go only to the
+impeachment of _Falstaff's veracity_, and not of his _Courage_. "_These
+lyes_," says the Prince, "_are like the father of them, gross as a
+mountain, open, palpable.--Why, thou clay-brained gutts, thou knotty-pated
+fool; how couldst thou know these men in Kendal Green, when it was so __
+dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us your reason._"
+
+"Poins. _Come, your reason, __JACK__, your reason._"
+
+Again, says the Prince, "_Hear how a plain Tale shall put you down--What
+trick, what device, what starting hole canst thou now find out to hide
+thee from this open and apparent shame?_"
+
+"Poins. _Come, let's hear, __JACK__, what trick hast thou now?_"
+
+All this clearly refers to _Falstaff_'s lyes only _as such_; and the
+objection seems to be, that he had not told them well, and with sufficient
+skill and probability. Indeed nothing seems to have been required of
+_Falstaff_ at any period of time but a good evasion. The truth is, that
+there is so much mirth, and so little of malice or imposition in his
+fictions, that they may for the most part be considered as mere strains of
+humour and exercises of wit, impeachable only for defect, when that
+happens, of the quality from which they are principally derived. Upon this
+occasion _Falstaff_'s evasions fail him; he is at the end of his
+invention; and it seems fair that, in defect of wit, the law should pass
+upon him, and that he should undergo the temporary censure of that
+Cowardice which he could not pass off by any evasion whatever. The best he
+could think of, was _instinct_: He was indeed a _Coward upon instinct_; in
+that respect _like a valiant lion, who would not touch the true Prince_.
+It would have been a vain attempt, the reader will easily perceive, in
+_Falstaff_, to have gone upon other ground, and to have aimed at
+justifying his Courage by a serious vindication: This would have been to
+have mistaken the true point of argument: It was his _lyes_, not his
+_Courage_, which was really in question. There was besides no getting out
+of the toils in which he had entangled himself: If he was not, he ought at
+least, by his own shewing, to have _been at half-sword with a dozen of
+them two hours together_; whereas, it unfortunately appears, and that too
+evidently to be evaded, that he had run with singular celerity from _two_,
+after the exchange of _a few __ blows_ only. This precluded _Falstaff_
+from all rational defence in his own person;--but it has not precluded me,
+who am not the advocate of his _lyes_, but of his _Courage_.
+
+But there are other singularities in _Falstaff_'s lyes, which go more
+directly to his vindication.--That they are confined to one scene and one
+occasion only, we are not _now_ at a loss to account for;--but what shall
+we say to their extravagance? The lyes of _Parolles_ and _Bobadill_ are
+brought into some shape; but the fictions of _Falstaff_ are so
+preposterous and _incomprehensible_, that one may fairly doubt if they
+ever were intended for credit; and therefore, if they ought to be called
+_lyes_, and not rather _humour_; or, to compound the matter, _humourous
+rhodomontades_. Certain it is, that they destroy their own purpose, and
+are clearly not the effect, in this respect, of a regulated practice, and
+a habit of imposition. The real truth seems to be, that had _Falstaff_,
+loose and unprincipled as he is, been born a Coward and bred a Soldier, he
+must, naturally, have been a great _Braggadocio_, a true _miles
+gloriosus_. But in such case he should have been exhibited active and
+young; for it is plain that age and corpulency are an excuse for
+Cowardice, which ought not to be afforded him. In the present case,
+wherein he was not only involved in suspicious circumstances, but wherein
+he seems to have felt some conscious touch of infirmity, and having no
+candid construction to expect from his laughing companions, he bursts at
+once, and with all his might, into the most unweighed and preposterous
+fictions, determined to put to proof on this occasion his boasted talent
+of _swearing truth out of England_. He tried it here, to its utmost
+extent, and was unfortunately routed on his own ground; which indeed, with
+such a mine beneath his feet, could not be otherwise. But without this, he
+had mingled in his deceits so much whimsical humour and fantastic
+exaggeration that he must have been detected; and herein appears the
+admirable address of _Shakespeare_, who can shew us _Falstaff_ in the
+various light, not only of what he is, but what he would have been under
+one single variation of character,--the want of natural Courage; whilst
+with an art not enough understood, he most effectually preserves the real
+character of _Falstaff_ even in the moment he seems to depart from it, by
+making his lyes too extravagant for practised imposition; by grounding
+them more upon humour than deceit; and turning them, as we shall next see,
+into a fair and honest proof of general Courage, by appropriating them to
+the concealment only of a single exception. And hence it is, that we see
+him draw so deeply and so confidently upon his former credit for Courage
+and atchievment: "_I never dealt better in my life,--thou know'st my old
+ward, Hal_," are expressions which clearly refer to some known feats and
+defences of his former life. His exclamations against Cowardice, his
+reference to his own manhood, "_Die when thou wilt, old __JACK__, if
+manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I
+a shotten herring_": These, and various expressions such as these, would
+be absurdities not impositions, Farce not Comedy, if not calculated to
+conceal some defect supposed unknown to the hearers; and these hearers
+were, in the present case, his constant companions, and the daily
+witnesses of his conduct. If before this period he had been a known and
+detected Coward, and was conscious that he had no credit to lose, I see no
+reason why he should fly so violently from a familiar ignominy which had
+often before attacked him; or why falshoods, seemingly in such a case
+neither calculated for or expecting credit, should be censured, or
+detected, as lyes or imposition.
+
+That the whole transaction was considered as a mere jest, and as carrying
+with it no serious imputation on the Courage of _Falstaff_, is manifest,
+not only from his being allowed, when the laugh was past, to call himself,
+without contradiction in the personated character of _Hal_ himself,
+"valiant _Jack Falstaff, and the more __VALIANT__ being, as he is_, old
+Jack Falstaff," but from various other particulars, and, above all, from
+the declaration, which the Prince makes on that very night, of his
+intention of procuring this _fat rogue a Charge of foot_;--a circumstance,
+doubtless, contrived by _Shakespeare_ to wipe off the seeming dishonour of
+the day: And from this time forward we hear of no imputation arising from
+this transaction; it is born and dies in a convivial hour; it leaves no
+trace behind, nor do we see any longer in the character of _Falstaff_ the
+boasting or braggadocio of a Coward.
+
+Tho' I have considered _Falstaff_'s character as relative only to one
+single quality, yet so much has been said, that it cannot escape the
+reader's notice that he is a character made up by _Shakespeare_ wholly of
+incongruities;--a man at once young and old, enterprizing and fat, a dupe
+and a wit, harmless and wicked, weak in principle and resolute by
+constitution, cowardly in appearance and brave in reality; a knave without
+malice, a lyar without deceit; and a knight, a gentleman, and a soldier,
+without either dignity, decency, or honour: This is a character, which,
+though it may be de-compounded, could not, I believe, have been formed,
+nor the ingredients of it duly mingled, upon any receipt whatever: It
+required the hand of _Shakespeare_ himself to give to every particular
+part a relish of the whole, and of the whole to every particular
+part;--alike the same incongruous, identical _Falstaff_, whether to the
+grave Chief Justice he vainly talks of his youth, and offers to _caper for
+a thousand_; or cries to Mrs. _Doll_, "_I am old, I am old_," though she
+is seated on his lap, and he is courting her for busses. How _Shakespeare_
+could furnish out sentiment of so extraordinary a composition, and supply
+it with such appropriated and characteristic language, humour and wit, I
+cannot tell; but I may, however, venture to infer, and that confidently,
+that he who so well understood the uses of incongruity, and that laughter
+was to be raised by the opposition of qualities in the same man, and not
+by their agreement or conformity, would never have attempted to raise
+mirth by shewing us Cowardice in a Coward unattended by Pretence, and
+softened by every excuse of age, corpulence, and infirmity: And of this we
+cannot have a more striking proof than his furnishing this very character,
+on one instance of real terror, however excusable, with boast,
+braggadocio, and pretence, exceeding that of all other stage Cowards the
+whole length of his superior wit, humour, and invention.
+
+What then upon the whole shall be said but that _Shakespeare_ has made
+certain Impressions, or produced certain effects, of which he has thought
+fit to conceal or obscure the cause? How he has done this, and for what
+special ends, we shall now presume to guess.--Before the period in which
+_Shakespeare_ wrote, the fools and Zanys of the stage were drawn out of
+the coarsest and cheapest materials: Some essential folly, with a dash of
+knave and coxcomb, did the feat. But _Shakespeare_, who delighted in
+difficulties, was resolved to furnish a richer repast, and to give to one
+eminent buffoon the high relish of wit, humour, birth, dignity, and
+Courage. But this was a process which required the nicest hand, and the
+utmost management and address: These enumerated qualities are, in their
+own nature, productive of _respect_; an Impression the most opposite to
+laughter that can be. This Impression then, it was, at all adventures,
+necessary to with-hold; which could not perhaps well be without dressing
+up these qualities in fantastic forms, and colours not their own; and
+thereby cheating the eye with shews of baseness and of folly, whilst he
+stole as it were upon the palate a richer and a fuller _goût_. To this
+end, what arts, what contrivances, has he not practised! How has he
+steeped this singular character in bad habits for fifty years together,
+and brought him forth saturated with every folly and with every vice not
+destructive of his essential character, or incompatible with his own
+primary design! For this end, he has deprived _Falstaff_ of every good
+principle; and for another, which will be presently mentioned, he has
+concealed every bad one. He has given him also every infirmity of body
+that is not likely to awaken our compassion, and which is most proper to
+render both his better qualities and his vices ridiculous: he has
+associated levity and debauch with _age_, corpulence and inactivity with
+_courage_, and has roguishly coupled the gout with _Military honours_, and
+a _pension_ with the _pox_. He has likewise involved this character in
+situations, out of which neither wit nor Courage can extricate him with
+honour. The surprize at _Gads-Hill_ might have betrayed a hero into
+flight, and the encounter with _Douglas_ left him no choice but death or
+stratagem. If he plays an after-game, and endeavours to redeem his ill
+fortune by lies and braggadocio, his ground fails him; no wit, no evasion
+will avail: Or is he likely to appear respectable in his person, rank, and
+demeanor, how is that respect abated or discharged! _Shakespeare_ has
+given him a kind of state indeed; but of what is it composed? Of that
+fustian cowardly rascal _Pistol_, and his yoke-fellow of few words, the
+equally deed-less _Nym_; of his cup-bearer the fiery _Trigon_, whose zeal
+burns in his nose, _Bardolph_; and of the boy, who bears the purse with
+_seven groats and two-pence_;--a boy who was given him on purpose to set
+him off, and whom he walks _before_, according to his own description,
+"_like a sow that had overwhelmed all her litter but one_."
+
+But it was not enough to render _Falstaff_ ridiculous in his figure,
+situations, and equipage; _still_ his respectable qualities would have
+come forth, at least occasionally, to spoil our mirth; or they might have
+burst the intervention of such slight impediments, and have every where
+shone through: It was necessary then to go farther, and throw on him that
+substantial ridicule, which only the incongruities of real vice can
+furnish; of vice, which was to be so mixed and blended with his frame as
+to give a durable character and colour to the whole.
+
+But it may here be necessary to detain the reader a moment in order to
+apprize him of my further intention; without which, I might hazard that
+good understanding, which I hope has hitherto been preserved between us.
+
+I have 'till now looked only to the Courage of _Falstaff_, a quality
+which, having been denied, in terms, to belong to his constitution, I have
+endeavoured to vindicate to the Understandings of my readers; the
+Impression on their Feelings (in which all Dramatic truth consists) being
+already, as I have supposed, in favour of the character. In the pursuit of
+this subject I have taken the general Impression of the whole character
+pretty much, I suppose, like other men; and, when occasion has required,
+have so transmitted it to the reader; joining in the common Feeling of
+_Falstaff_'s pleasantry, his apparent freedom from ill principle, and his
+companionable wit and good humour: With a stage character, in the article
+of exhibition, we have nothing more to do; for in fact what is it but an
+Impression; an appearance, which we are to consider as a reality, and
+which we may venture to applaud or condemn as such, without further
+inquiry or investigation? But if we would account for our Impressions, or
+for certain sentiments or actions in a character, not derived from its
+apparent principles, yet appearing, we know not why, natural, we are then
+compelled to look farther, and examine if there be not something more in
+the character than is _shewn_; something inferred, which is not brought
+under our special notice: In short, we must look to the art of the writer,
+and to the principles of human nature, to discover the hidden causes of
+such effects.--Now this is a very different matter.--The former
+considerations respected the Impression only, without regard to the
+Understanding; but this question relates to the Understanding alone. It is
+true that there are but few Dramatic characters which will bear this kind
+of investigation, as not being drawn in exact conformity to those
+principles of general nature to which we must refer. But this is not the
+case with regard to the characters of _Shakespeare_; they are struck out
+_whole_, by some happy art which I cannot clearly comprehend, out of the
+general mass of things, from the block as it were of nature: And it is, I
+think, an easier thing to give a just draught of man from these Theatric
+forms, which I cannot help considering as originals, than by drawing from
+real life, amidst so much intricacy, obliquity, and disguise. If
+therefore, for further proofs of _Falstaff_'s Courage, or for the sake of
+curious speculation, or for both, I change my position, and look to causes
+instead of effects, the reader must not be surprized if he finds the
+former _Falstaff_ vanish like a dream, and another, of more disgustful
+form, presented to his view; one whose final punishment we shall be so far
+from regretting, that we ourselves shall be ready to consign him to a
+severer doom.
+
+The reader will very easily apprehend that a character, which we might
+wholly disapprove of, considered as existing in human life, may yet be
+thrown on the stage into certain peculiar situations, and be compressed by
+external influences into such temporary appearances, as may render such
+character for a time highly acceptable and entertaining, and even more
+distinguished for qualities, which on this supposition would be accidents
+only, than another character really possessing those qualities, but which,
+under the pressure of the same situation and influences, would be
+distorted into a different form, or totally left in timidity and weakness.
+If therefore the character before us will admit of this kind of
+investigation, our Inquiry will not be without some dignity, considered as
+extending to the principles of human nature, and to the genius and arts of
+Him, who has best caught every various form of the human mind, and
+transmitted them with the greatest happiness and fidelity.
+
+To return then to the vices of _Falstaff_.--We have frequently referred to
+them under the name of ill habits;--but perhaps the reader is not fully
+aware how very vicious he indeed is;--he is a robber, a glutton, a cheat, a
+drunkard, and a lyar; lascivious, vain, insolent, profligate, and
+profane:--A fine infusion this, and such as without very excellent cookery
+must have thrown into the dish a great deal too much of the _fumet_. It
+was a nice operation;--these vices were not only to be of a particular
+sort, but it was also necessary to guard them at both ends; on the _one_,
+from all appearance of malicious motive, and indeed from the manifestation
+of any ill principle whatever, which must have produced _disgust_,--a
+sensation no less opposite to laughter than is _respect_;--and, on the
+_other_, from the notice, or even apprehension, in the spectators, of
+_pernicious effect_; which produces _grief_ and _terror_, and is the
+proper province of Tragedy alone.
+
+_Actions_ cannot with strict propriety be said to be either virtuous or
+vicious. These qualities, or attributes, belong to _agents_ only; and are
+derived, even in respect to _them_, from intention alone. The abstracting
+of qualities, and considering them as independent of any _subject_, and
+the applying of them afterwards to actions independent of the agent, is a
+double operation which I do not pretend, thro' any part of it, to
+understand. All actions may most properly, in their own nature, I think,
+be called _neutral_; tho' in common discourse, and in writing where
+perfection is not requisite, we often term them _vicious_, transferring on
+these occasions the attributive from the _agent_ to the _action_; and
+sometimes we call them _evil_, or of pernicious effect, by transferring,
+in like manner, the injuries incidentally arising from certain actions to
+the life, happiness, or interest of human beings, to the natural
+operation, whether moral or physical, of the _actions_ themselves: _One_
+is a colour thrown on them by the _intention_, in which I think consists
+all moral turpitude, and the _other_ by effect: If therefore a Dramatic
+writer will use certain managements to keep vicious intention as much as
+possible from our notice, and make us sensible that no evil effect
+follows, he may pass off actions of very vicious motive, without much ill
+impression, as mere _incongruities_, and the effect of _humour_
+only;--_words these_, which, as applied to human conduct, are employed, I
+believe, to cover a great deal of what may deserve much harder
+appellation.
+
+The _difference_ between suffering an evil effect to take place, and of
+preventing such effect, from actions precisely of the same nature, is so
+great, that it is often _all the difference_ between Tragedy and Comedy.
+The Fine gentleman of the Comic scene, who so promptly draws his sword,
+and wounds, without killing, some other gentleman of the same sort; and
+_He_ of Tragedy, whose stabs are mortal, differ very frequently in no
+other point whatever. If our _Falstaff_ had really _peppered_ (as he calls
+it) _two rogues in buckram suits_, we must have looked for a very
+different conclusion, and have expected to have found _Falstaff_'s
+Essential prose converted into blank verse, and to have seen him move off,
+in slow and measured paces, like the City Prentice to the tolling of a
+Passing bell;--"_he would have become a cart as well as another, or a
+plague on his bringing up._"
+
+Every incongruity in a rational being is a source of laughter, whether it
+respects manners, sentiments, conduct, or even dress, or situation;--but
+the greatest of all possible incongruity is vice, whether in the intention
+itself, or as transferred to, and becoming more manifest in action;--it is
+inconsistent with moral agency, nay, with rationality itself, and all the
+ends and purposes of our being.--Our author describes the natural ridicule
+of vice in his MEASURE _for_ MEASURE in the strongest terms, where, after
+having made the angels weep over the vices of men, he adds, that _with_
+our spleens _they might laugh themselves quite mortal_. Indeed if we had a
+perfect discernment of the ends of this life only, and could preserve
+ourselves from sympathy, disgust, and terror, the vices of mankind would
+be a source of perpetual entertainment. The great difference between
+_Heraclitus_ and _Democritus_ lay, it seems, in their spleen only;--for a
+wise and good man must either laugh or cry without ceasing. Nor indeed is
+it easy to conceive (to instance in one case only) a more laughable, or a
+more melancholy object, than a human being, his nature and duration
+considered, earnestly and anxiously exchanging peace of mind and conscious
+integrity for gold; and for gold too, which he has often no occasion for,
+or dares not employ:--But _Voltaire_ has by one Publication rendered all
+_arguments_ superfluous: He has told us, in his _Candide_, the merriest
+and most diverting tale of frauds, murders, massacres, rapes, rapine,
+desolation, and destruction, that I think it possible on any other plan to
+invent; and he has given us _motive_ and _effect_, with every possible
+aggravation, to improve the sport. One would think it difficult to
+preserve the point of ridicule, in such a case, unabated by contrary
+emotions; but now that the feat is performed it appears of easy imitation,
+and I am amazed that our race of imitators have made no efforts in this
+sort: It would answer I should think in the way of profit, not to mention
+the moral uses to which it might be applied. The managements of _Voltaire_
+consists in this, that he assumes a gay, easy, and light tone himself;
+that he never excites the reflections of his readers by making any of his
+own; that he hurries us on with such a rapidity of narration as prevents
+our emotions from resting on any particular point; and to gain this end,
+he has interwoven the conclusion of one fact so into the commencement of
+another, that we find ourselves engaged in new matter before we are
+sensible that we had finished the old; he has likewise made his crimes so
+enormous, that we do not sadden on any sympathy, or find ourselves
+partakers in the guilt.--But what is truly singular as to this book, is,
+that it does not appear to have been written for any moral purpose, but
+for That only (if I do not err) of satyrising Providence itself; a design
+so enormously profane, that it may well pass for the most ridiculous part
+of the whole composition.
+
+But if vice, divested of disgust and terror, is thus in its own nature
+ridiculous, we ought not to be surprized if the very same vices which
+spread horror and desolation thro' the Tragic scene should yet furnish the
+Comic with its highest laughter and delight, and that tears, and mirth,
+and even humour and wit itself, should grow from the same root of
+incongruity: For what is humour in the humourist, but incongruity, whether
+of sentiment, conduct, or manners? What in the man of humour, but a quick
+discernment and keen sensibility of these incongruities? And what is wit
+itself, without presuming however to give a complete definition where so
+many have failed, but a talent, for the most part, of marking with force
+and vivacity unexpected points of likeness in things supposed incongruous,
+and points of incongruity in things supposed alike: And hence it is that
+wit and humour, tho' always distinguished, are so often coupled together;
+it being very possible, I suppose, to be a man of humour without wit; but
+I think not a man of wit without humour.
+
+But I have here raised so much new matter, that the reader may be out of
+hope of seeing this argument, any more than the tale of _Tristram_,
+brought to a conclusion: He may suppose me now prepared to turn my pen to
+a moral, or to a dramatic Essay, or ready to draw the line between vice
+and virtue, or Comedy and Tragedy, as fancy shall lead the way;--But he is
+happily mistaken; I am pressing earnestly, and not without some
+impatience, to a conclusion. The principles I have now opened are
+necessary to be considered for the purpose of estimating the character of
+_Falstaff_, considered as relatively to human nature: I shall then reduce
+him with all possible dispatch to his Theatric condition, and restore him,
+I hope, without injury, to the stage.
+
+There is indeed a vein or two of argument running through the matter that
+now surrounds me, which I might open for my own more peculiar purposes;
+but which, having resisted much greater temptations, I shall wholly
+desert. It ought not, however, to be forgotten, that if _Shakespeare_ has
+used arts to abate our respect of _Falstaff_, it should follow by just
+inference, that, without such arts, his character would have grown into a
+_respect_ inconsistent with laughter; and that yet, without Courage, he
+could not have been respectable at all;--that it required nothing less than
+the union of ability and Courage to support his other more accidental
+qualities with any tolerable coherence. Courage and Ability are first
+principles of Character, and not to be destroyed whilst the united frame
+of body and mind continues whole and unimpaired; they are the pillars on
+which he stands firm in spight of all his vices and disgraces;--but if we
+should take Courage away, and reckon Cowardice among his other defects,
+all the intelligence and wit in the world could not support him through a
+single Play.
+
+The effect of taking away the influence of this quality upon the manners
+of a character, tho' the quality and the influence be assumed only, is
+evident in the cases of _Parolles_ and _Bobadil_. _Parolles_, at least,
+did not seem to want wit; but both these characters are reduced almost to
+non-entity, and, after their disgraces, walk only thro' a scene or two,
+the mere mockery of their former existence. _Parolles_ was so changed,
+that neither the _fool_, nor the old lord _Le-feu_, could readily
+recollect his person; and his wit seemed to be annihilated with his
+Courage.
+
+Let it not be here objected that _Falstaff_ is universally considered as a
+Coward;--we do indeed call him so; but that is nothing, if the character
+itself does not act from any consciousness of this kind, and if our
+Feelings take his part, and revolt against our understanding.
+
+As to the arts by which _Shakespeare_ has contrived to obscure the vices
+of _Falstaff_, they are such as, being subservient only to the mirth of
+the Play, I do not feel myself obliged to detail.
+
+But it may be well worth our curiosity to inquire into the composition of
+_Falstaff_'s character.--Every man we may observe has two characters; that
+is, every man may be seen externally, and from without;--or a section may
+be made of him, and he may be illuminated from within.
+
+Of the external character of _Falstaff_, we can scarcely be said to have
+any steady view. _Jack Falstaff_ we are familiar with, but _Sir John_ was
+better known, it seems, _to the rest of Europe_, than to his intimate
+companions; yet we have so many glimpses of him, and he is opened to us
+occasionally in such various points of view, that we cannot be mistaken in
+describing him as a man of birth and fashion, bred up in all the learning
+and accomplishments of the times;--of ability and Courage equal to any
+situation, and capable by nature of the highest affairs; trained to arms,
+and possessing the tone, the deportment, and the manners of a
+gentleman;--but yet these accomplishments and advantages seem to hang loose
+on him, and to be worn with a slovenly carelessness and inattention: A too
+great indulgence of the qualities of humour and wit seems to draw him too
+much one way, and to destroy the grace and orderly arrangement of his
+other accomplishments;--and hence he becomes strongly marked for one
+advantage, to the injury, and almost forgetfulness in the beholder, of all
+the rest. Some of his vices likewise strike through, and stain his
+Exterior;--his modes of speech betray a certain licentiousness of mind; and
+that high Aristocratic tone which belonged to his situation was pushed on,
+and aggravated into unfeeling insolence and oppression. "_It is not a
+confirmed brow_," says the Chief Justice, "_nor the throng of words that
+come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a
+level consideration_": "_My lord_," answers _Falstaff_, "_you call
+honourable boldness impudent sauciness. If a man will court'sie and say
+nothing, he is virtuous: No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will
+not be your suitor. I say to you I desire deliverance from these officers,
+being upon hasty employment in the King's affairs._" "_You speak_,"
+replies the Chief Justice, "_as having power to do wrong._"--His whole
+behaviour to the Chief Justice, whom he despairs of winning by flattery,
+is singularly insolent; and the reader will remember many instances of his
+insolence to others: Nor are his manners always free from the taint of
+vulgar society;--"_This is the right fencing grace, my lord_," says he to
+the Chief Justice, with great impropriety of manners, "_tap for tap, and
+so part fair_": "_Now the lord lighten thee,_" is the reflection of the
+Chief Justice, "_thou art a very great fool._"--Such a character as I have
+here described, strengthened with that vigour, force, and alacrity of
+mind, of which he is possessed, must have spread terror and dismay thro'
+the ignorant, the timid, the modest, and the weak: Yet is he however, when
+occasion requires, capable of much accommodation and flattery;--and in
+order to obtain the protection and patronage of the great, so convenient
+to his vices and his poverty, he was put under the daily necessity of
+practising and improving these arts; a baseness which he compensates to
+himself, like other unprincipled men, by an increase of insolence towards
+his inferiors.--There is also a natural activity about _Falstaff_ which,
+for want of proper employment, shews itself in a kind of swell or bustle,
+which seems to correspond with his bulk, as if his mind had inflated his
+body, and demanded a habitation of no less circumference: Thus conditioned
+he rolls (in the language of _Ossian_) like a _Whale of Ocean_, scattering
+the smaller fry; but affording, in his turn, noble contention to _Hal_ and
+_Poins_; who, to keep up the allusion, I may be allowed on this occasion
+to compare to the Thresher and the Sword-fish.
+
+To this part of _Falstaff_'s character, many things which he does and
+says, and which appear unaccountably natural, are to be referred.
+
+We are next to see him _from within_: And here we shall behold him most
+villainously unprincipled and debauched; possessing indeed the same
+Courage and ability, yet stained with numerous vices, unsuited not only to
+his primary qualities, but to his age, corpulency, rank, and
+profession;--reduced by these vices to a state of dependence, yet
+resolutely bent to indulge them at any price. These vices have been
+already enumerated; they are many, and become still more intolerable by an
+excess of unfeeling insolence on one hand, and of base accommodation on
+the other.
+
+But what then, after all, is become of _old Jack_? Is this the jovial
+delightful companion--_Falstaff_, the favourite and the boast of the
+Stage?--by no means. But it is, I think however, the _Falstaff_ of Nature;
+the very stuff out of which the _Stage Falstaff_ is composed; nor was it
+possible, I believe, out of any other materials he could have been formed.
+From this disagreeable draught we shall be able, I trust, by a proper
+disposition of light and shade, and from the influence of compression of
+external things, to produce _plump Jack_, the life of humour, the spirit
+of pleasantry, and the soul of mirth.
+
+To this end, _Falstaff_ must no longer be considered as a single
+independent character, but grouped, as we find him shewn to us in the
+Play;--his ability must be disgraced by buffoonery, and his Courage by
+circumstances of imputation; and those qualities be thereupon reduced into
+subjects of mirth and laughter:--His vices must be concealed at each end
+from vicious design and evil effect, and must thereupon be turned into
+incongruities, and assume the name of humour only;--his insolence must be
+repressed by the superior tone of _Hal_ and _Poins_, and take the softer
+name of spirit only, or alacrity of mind;--his state of dependence, his
+temper of accommodation, and his activity, must fall in precisely with the
+indulgence of his humours; that is, he must thrive best and flatter most,
+by being extravagantly incongruous; and his own tendency, impelled by so
+much activity, will carry him with perfect ease and freedom to all the
+necessary excesses. But why, it may be asked, should incongruities
+recommend _Falstaff_ to the favour of the Prince?--Because the Prince is
+supposed to possess a high relish of humour and to have a temper and a
+force about him, which, whatever was his pursuit, delighted in excess.
+This, _Falstaff_ is supposed perfectly to comprehend; and thereupon not
+only to indulge himself in all kinds of incongruity, but to lend out his
+own superior wit and humour against himself, and to heighten the ridicule
+by all the tricks and arts of buffoonery for which his corpulence, his
+age, and situation, furnish such excellent materials. This compleats the
+Dramatic character of _Falstaff_, and gives him that appearance of perfect
+good-nature, pleasantry, mellowness, and hilarity of mind, for which we
+admire and almost love him, tho' we feel certain reserves which forbid our
+going that length; the true reason of which is, that there will be always
+found a difference between mere appearances and reality: Nor are we, nor
+can we be, insensible that whenever the action of external influence upon
+him is in whole or in part relaxed, the character restores itself
+proportionably to its more unpleasing condition.
+
+A character really possessing the qualities which are on the stage imputed
+to _Falstaff_, would be best shewn by its own natural energy; the least
+compression would disorder it, and make us feel for it all the pain of
+sympathy: It is the artificial condition of _Falstaff_ which is the source
+of our delight; we enjoy his distresses, we _gird at him_ ourselves, and
+urge the sport without the least alloy of compassion; and we give him,
+when the laugh is over, undeserved credit for the pleasure we enjoyed. If
+any one thinks that these observations are the effect of too much
+refinement, and that there was in truth more of chance in the case than of
+management or design, let him try his own luck;--perhaps he may draw out of
+the wheel of fortune a _Macbeth_, an _Othello_, a _Benedict_, or a
+_Falstaff_.
+
+Such, I think, is the true character of this extraordinary buffoon; and
+from hence we may discern for what special purposes _Shakespeare_ has
+given him talents and qualities, which were to be afterwards obscured, and
+perverted to ends opposite to their nature; it was clearly to furnish out
+a Stage buffoon of a peculiar sort; a kind of Game-bull which would stand
+the baiting thro' a hundred Plays, and produce equal sport, whether he is
+pinned down occasionally by _Hal_ or _Poins_, or tosses such mongrils as
+_Bardolph_, or the Justices, sprawling in the air. There is in truth no
+such thing as totally demolishing _Falstaff_; he has so much of the
+invulnerable in his frame that no ridicule can destroy him; he is safe
+even in defeat, and seems to rise, like another _Antæus_, with recruited
+vigour from every fall; in this, as in every other respect, unlike
+_Parolles_ or _Bobadil_: They fall by the first shaft of ridicule, but
+_Falstaff_ is a butt on which we may empty the whole quiver, whilst the
+substance of his character remains unimpaired. His ill habits, and the
+accidents of age and corpulence, are no part of his essential
+constitution; they come forward indeed on our eye, and solicit our notice,
+but they are second natures, not _first_; mere shadows, we pursue them in
+vain; _Falstaff_ himself has a distinct and separate subsistence; he
+laughs at the chace, and when the sport is over, gathers them with
+unruffled feather under his wing: And hence it is that he is made to
+undergo not one detection only, but a series of detections; that he is not
+formed for one Play only, but was intended originally at least for two;
+and the author, we are told, was doubtful if he should not extend him yet
+farther, and engage him in the wars with _France_. This he might well have
+done, for there is nothing perishable in the nature of _Falstaff_: He
+might have involved him, by the vicious part of his character, in new
+difficulties and unlucky situations, and have enabled him, by the better
+part, to have scrambled through, abiding and retorting the jests and
+laughter of every beholder.
+
+But whatever we may be told concerning the intention of _Shakespeare_ to
+extend this character farther, there is a manifest preparation near the
+end of the second part of Henry IV. for his disgrace: The disguise is
+taken off, and he begins openly to pander to the excesses of the Prince,
+intitling himself to the character afterwards given him of being _the
+tutor and the feeder of his riots_. "_I will fetch off_," says he, "_these
+Justices.--I will devise matter enough out of this __SHALLOW__ to keep the
+Prince in continual laughter the wearing out of six fashions.--If the young
+__DACE__ be a bait for the old __PIKE__,_" (speaking with reference to his
+own designs upon _Shallow_) "_I see no reason in the law of nature but I
+may snap at him._"--This is shewing himself abominably dissolute: The
+laborious arts of fraud, which he practises on _Shallow_ to induce the
+loan of a thousand pound, create _disgust_; and the more, as we are
+sensible this money was never likely to be _paid back_, as we are told
+that _was_, of which the travellers had been robbed. It is true we feel no
+pain for _Shallow_, he being a very bad character, as would fully appear,
+if he were unfolded; but _Falstaff_'s deliberation in fraud is not on that
+account more excusable.--The event of the old King's death draws him out
+almost into detestation.--"_Master __ROBERT SHALLOW__, chuse what office
+thou wilt in the land,--'tis thine.--I am fortune's steward.--Let us take any
+man's horses.--The laws of England are at my commandment.--Happy are they
+who have been my friends;--and woe to my __LORD CHIEF JUSTICE__._"--After
+this we ought not to complain if we see Poetic justice duly executed upon
+him, and that he is finally given up to shame and dishonour.
+
+But it is remarkable that, during this process, we are not acquainted with
+the success of _Falstaff_'s designs upon _Shallow_ 'till the moment of his
+disgrace. "_If I had had time_," says he to _Shallow_, as the King is
+approaching, "_to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the
+thousand pounds I borrowed of you_";--and the first word he utters after
+this period is, "_Master __SHALLOW__, I owe you a thousand pounds_": We
+may from hence very reasonably presume, that _Shakespeare_ meant to
+connect this fraud with the punishment of _Falstaff_, as a more avowed
+ground of censure and dishonour: Nor ought the consideration that this
+passage contains the most exquisite comic humour and propriety in another
+view, to diminish the truth of this observation.
+
+But however just it might be to demolish _Falstaff_ in this way, by
+opening to us his bad principles, it was by no means _convenient_. If we
+had been to have seen a single representation of him only, it might have
+been proper enough; but as he was to be shewn from night to night, and
+from age to age, the disgust arising from the _close_ would by degrees
+have spread itself over the whole character; reference would be had
+throughout to his bad principles, and he would have become less acceptable
+as he was more known: And yet it was necessary to bring him, like all
+other stage characters, to some conclusion. Every play must be wound up by
+some event, which may shut in the characters and the action. If some
+_hero_ obtains a crown, or a mistress, involving therein the fortune of
+others, we are satisfied;--we do not desire to be afterwards admitted of
+his council, or his bed-chamber: Or if through jealousy, causeless or well
+founded, _another_ kills a beloved wife, and himself after,--there is no
+more to be said;--they are dead, and there an end; Or if in the scenes of
+Comedy, parties are engaged, and plots formed, for the furthering or
+preventing the completion of that great article Cuckoldom, we expect to be
+satisfied in the point as far as the nature of so nice a case will permit,
+or at least to see such a manifest _disposition_ as will leave us in no
+doubt of the event. By the bye, I cannot but think that the Comic writers
+of the last age treated this matter as of more importance, and made more
+bustle about it, than the temper of the present times will well bear; and
+it is therefore to be hoped that the Dramatic authors of the present day,
+some of whom, to the best of my judgment, are deserving of great praise,
+will consider and treat this business, rather as a common and natural
+incident arising out of modern manners, than as worthy to be held forth as
+the great object and sole end of the Play.
+
+But whatever be the question, or whatever the character, the curtain must
+not only be dropt before the eyes, but over the minds of the spectators,
+and nothing left for further examination and curiosity.--But how was this
+to be done in regard to _Falstaff_? He was not involved in the fortune of
+the Play; he was engaged in no action which, as to him, was to be
+compleated; he had reference to no system, he was attracted to no center;
+he passes thro' the Play as a lawless meteor, and we wish to know what
+course he is afterwards likely to take: He is detected and disgraced, it
+is true; but he lives by detection, and thrives on disgrace; and we are
+desirous to see him detected and disgraced again. The _Fleet_ might be no
+bad scene of further amusement;--he carries _all_ within him, _and what
+matter_ where, _if he be still the same_, possessing the same force of
+mind, the same wit, and the same incongruity. This, _Shakespeare_ was
+fully sensible of, and knew that this character could not be compleatly
+dismissed but by death.--"Our author," says the Epilogue to the Second Part
+of Henry IV., "will continue the story with Sir _John_ in it, and make you
+merry with fair _Catherine_ of _France_; where, for any thing I know,
+_Falstaff_ shall dye of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your
+hard opinions." If it had been prudent in _Shakespeare_ to have killed
+_Falstaff_ with _hard opinion_, he had the means in his hand to effect
+it;--but dye, it seems, he must, in one form or another, and a _sweat_
+would have been no unsuitable catastrophe. However we have reason to be
+satisfied as it is;--his death was worthy of his birth and of his life:
+"_He was born_," he says, "_about three o'clock in the afternoon, with a
+white head, and something a round belly._" But if he came into the world
+in the evening with these marks of age, he departs out of it in the
+morning in all the follies and vanities of youth;--"_He was shaked_" (we
+are told) "_of a burning quotidian tertian;--the young King had run bad
+humours on the knight;--his heart was fracted and corroborate; and a'
+parted just between twelve and one, even at the turning of the tide,
+yielding the crow a pudding, and passing directly into __ARTHUR'S BOSOM__,
+if ever man went into the bosom of __ARTHUR__._"--So ended this singular
+buffoon; and with him ends an Essay, on which the reader is left to bestow
+what character he pleases: An Essay professing to treat of the Courage of
+_Falstaff_, but extending itself to his Whole character; to the arts and
+genius of his Poetic-Maker, SHAKESPEARE; and thro' him sometimes, with
+ambitious aim, even to the principles of human nature itself.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+
+
+Nicholas Rowe.
+
+
+2. _Some Latin without question_, etc. This passage, down to the reference
+to the scene in _Henry V._, is omitted by Pope. _Love's Labour's Lost_,
+iv. 2, 95; _Titus Andronicus_, iv. 2, 20; _Henry V._, iii. 4.
+
+3. _Deer-stealing._ This tradition--which was first recorded in print by
+Rowe--has often been doubted. See, however, Halliwell-Phillipps's _Outlines
+of the Life of Shakespeare_, 1886, ii., p. 71, and Mr. Sidney Lee's _Life
+of Shakespeare_, pp. 27, etc.
+
+4. _the first Play he wrote._ Pope inserted here the following note: "The
+highest date of any I can yet find is _Romeo and Juliet_ in 1597, when the
+author was 33 years old, and _Richard the 2d_ and _3d_ in the next year,
+viz. the 34th of his age." The two last had been printed in 1597.
+
+_Mr. Dryden seems to think that Pericles_, etc. This sentence was omitted
+by Pope.
+
+5. _the best conversations_, etc. Rowe here controverts the opinion
+expressed by Dryden in his _Essay on the Dramatic Poetry of the Last Age_:
+"I cannot find that any of them had been conversant in courts, except Ben
+Johnson; and his genius lay not so much that way as to make an improvement
+by it. Greatness was not then so easy of access, nor conversation so free,
+as now it is" (_Essays_, ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 175).
+
+_A fair Vestal._ _Midsummer Night's Dream_, ii. 1, 158. In the original
+Rowe adds to his quotations from Shakespeare the page references to his
+own edition.
+
+_The Merry Wives._ The tradition that the _Merry Wives_ was written at the
+command of Elizabeth had been recorded already by Dennis in the preface to
+his version of the play,--_The Comical Gallant, or the Amours of Sir John
+Falstaffe_ (1702): "This Comedy was written at her command, and by her
+direction, and she was so eager to see it acted, that she commanded it to
+be finished in fourteen days; and was afterwards, as Tradition tells us,
+very well pleas'd at the Representation." Cf. Dennis's _Defence of a
+Regulated Stage_: "she not only commanded Shakespear to write the comedy
+of the _Merry Wives_, and to write it in ten day's time," etc. (_Original
+Letters_, 1721, i., p. 232).
+
+_this part of Falstaff._ Rowe is here indebted apparently to the account
+of John Fastolfe in Fuller's _Worthies of England_ (1662). But neither in
+it, nor in the similar passage on Oldcastle in the _Church History of
+Britain_ (1655, Bk. IV., Cent, XV., p. 168), does Fuller say that the name
+was altered at the command of the queen, on objection being made by
+Oldcastle's descendants. This may have been a tradition at Rowe's time, as
+there was then apparently no printed authority for it, but, as
+Halliwell-Phillips showed in his _Character of Sir John Falstaff_, 1841,
+it is confirmed by a manuscript of about 1625, preserved in the Bodleian.
+Cf. also Halliwell-Phillips's _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_, 1886,
+ii., pp. 351, etc.; Richard James's _Iter Lancastrense_ (Chetham Society,
+1845, p. lxv.); and Ingleby's _Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse_, 1879,
+pp. 164-5.
+
+_name of Oldcastle._ Pope added in a footnote, "_See the Epilogue to_
+Henry 4th."
+
+6. _Venus and Adonis._ The portion of the sentence following this title
+was omitted by Pope because it is inaccurate. _The Rape of Lucrece_ also
+was dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. The error is alluded to in
+Sewell's preface to the seventh volume of Pope's Shakespeare, 1725.
+
+_Eunuchs._ Pope reads "Singers."
+
+The passage dealing with Spenser (p. 6, l. 34, to p. 7, l. 36) was omitted
+by Pope. But it is interesting to know Dryden's opinion, even though it is
+probably erroneous. _Willy_ has not yet been identified.
+
+8. _After this they were professed friends_, etc. This description of Ben
+Jonson, down to the words "with infinite labour and study could but hardly
+attain to," was omitted by Pope, for reasons which appear in his Preface.
+See pp. 54, 55.
+
+_Ben was naturally proud and insolent_, etc. Rowe here paraphrases and
+expands Dryden's description in his _Discourse concerning Satire_ of
+Jonson's verses to the memory of Shakespeare,--"an insolent, sparing, and
+invidious panegyric" (ed. W. P. Ker, ii., p. 18).
+
+_In a conversation_, etc. The authority for this conversation is Dryden,
+who had recorded it as early as 1668 in his _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, at
+the conclusion of the magnificent eulogy of Shakespeare. He had also
+spoken of it to Charles Gildon, who, in his _Reflections on Mr. Rymer's
+Short View of Tragedy_ (1694), had given it with greater fulness of
+detail. Each of the three accounts contains certain particulars lacking in
+the other two, but they have unmistakably a common source. Dryden probably
+told the story to Rowe, as he had already told it to Gildon. The chief
+difficulty is the source, not of Rowe's information, but of Dryden's. As
+Jonson was present at the discussion, it must have taken place by 1637. It
+is such a discussion as prompted Suckling's _Session of the Poets_ (1637),
+wherein Hales and Falkland figure. It cannot be dated "before 1633" (as in
+Ingleby's _Centurie of Prayse_, pp. 198-9). The Lord Falkland mentioned in
+Gildon's account is undoubtedly the _second_ lord, who succeeded in 1633,
+and died in 1643. Dryden may have got his information from Davenant.
+
+8. Pope condensed the passage thus: "Mr. _Hales_, who had sat still for
+some time, told 'em, That if _Shakespear_ had not read the Ancients, he
+had likewise not stollen anything from 'em; and that if he would produce,"
+etc.
+
+9. _Johnson did indeed take a large liberty._ The concluding portion of
+this paragraph from these words is omitted by Pope.
+
+The _Menaechmi_ was translated by "W. W.," probably William Warner. It was
+licensed in June, 1594, and published in 1595, but, as the preface states,
+it had been circulated in manuscript before it was printed. The _Comedy of
+Errors_, which was acted by 1594, may have been founded on the _Historie
+of Error_, which was given at Hampton Court in 1576-7, and probably also
+at Windsor in 1582-3. See Farmer's _Essay_, p. 200,
+
+This passage dealing with Rymer is omitted by Pope. He retains of this
+paragraph only the first two lines ( ... "Shakespear's Works") and the
+last three ("so I will only take," etc.).
+
+Thomas Rymer, the editor of the _Foedera_, published his _Short View of
+Tragedy_ in 1693. The criticism of _Othello_ and _Julius Caesar_ contained
+therein he had promised as early as 1678 in his _Tragedies of the Last
+Age_. His "sample of Tragedy," _Edgar or the British Monarch_, appeared in
+1678.
+
+11. _Falstaff's Billet-Doux ... expressions of love in their way_, omitted
+by Pope.
+
+12. _The Merchant of Venice_ was turned into a comedy, with the title the
+_Jew of Venice_, by George Granville, Pope's "Granville the polite,"
+afterwards Lord Lansdowne. It was acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1701.
+The part of the Jew was performed by Dogget. Betterton played Bassanio.
+See Genest's _English Stage_, ii. 243, etc.
+
+_is a little too much_ (line 13). Pope reads _is too much_.
+
+_Difficile est_, etc. Horace, _Ars poetica_, 128.
+
+_All the world_, etc. _As you like it_, ii. 7. 139.
+
+13. _She never told her love_, etc. _Twelfth Night_, ii. 4. 113-118: line
+116, "And with a green and yellow melancholy" is omitted.
+
+Pope omits _a passage or two in_ (line 34).
+
+_ornament to the Sermons_. Cf. Addison, _Spectator_, No. 61: "The greatest
+authors, in their most serious works, made frequent use of punns. The
+Sermons of Bishop Andrews, and the Tragedies of Shakespear, are full of
+them."
+
+14. Pope omits _former_ (line 5).
+
+_Caliban._ Cf. Dryden's Preface to _Troilus and Cressida_ (ed. W. P. Ker.,
+i., p. 219) and the _Spectator_, Nos. 279 and 419. Johnson criticised the
+remark in his notes on the _Tempest_ (ed. 1765, i., p. 21).
+
+Note. _Ld. Falkland_, Lucius Gary (1610-1643), second Viscount Falkland;
+_Ld. C. J. Vaughan_, Sir John Vaughan (1603-1674), Lord Chief Justice of
+the Common Pleas; _John Selden_ (1584-1654), the jurist.
+
+_Among the particular beauties_, etc. This passage, to the end of the
+quotation from Dryden's Prologue, is omitted by Pope.
+
+16. _Dorastus and Faunia_, the alternative title of Robert Greene's
+_Pandosto, or the Triumph of Time_, 1588.
+
+17. Pope omits _tyrannical, cruel, and_ (line 36).
+
+18. _Plutarch._ Rowe's statement that Shakespeare "copied" his Roman
+characters from Plutarch is--as it stands--inconsistent with the previous
+argument as to his want of learning. His use of North's translation was
+not established till the days of Johnson and Farmer.
+
+_André Dacier_ (1651-1722) was best known in England by his _Essay on
+Satire_, which was included in his edition of Horace (1681, etc.), and by
+his edition of the _Poetics_ of Aristotle (1692). The former was used by
+Dryden in his _Discourse concerning Satire_, and appeared in English in
+1692 and 1695; the latter was translated in 1705. In 1692 he brought out a
+prose translation, "with remarks," of the _Oedipus_ and _Electra_ of
+Sophocles. Rowe's reference is to Dacier's preface to the latter play, pp.
+253, 254. Cf. his _Poetics_, notes to ch. xv., and the _Spectator_, No.
+44.
+
+19. _But howsoever_, etc. _Hamlet_, i. 5. 84.
+
+20. _Betterton's_ contemporaries unite in praise of his performance of
+Hamlet. Downes has an interesting note in his _Roscius Anglicanus_ showing
+how, in the acting of this part, Betterton benefited by Shakespeare's
+coaching: "Sir William _Davenant_ (having seen Mr. Taylor, of the Black
+Fryars Company, act it; who being instructed by the author, Mr.
+Shakespear) taught Mr. Betterton in every particle of it, gained him
+esteem and reputation superlative to all other plays" (1789, p. 29). But
+cf. the _Rise and Progress of the English Theatre_, appended to Colley
+Cibber's _Apology_, 1750, p. 516.
+
+The epilogue for Betterton's "benefit" in 1709 was written by Rowe.
+Betterton died in 1710.
+
+_Since I had at first resolv'd ... said of him made good._ This second
+criticism of Rymer is also omitted by Pope.
+
+21. _Ten in the hundred_, etc. Reed, Steevens, and Malone have proved
+conclusively, if somewhat laboriously, that these wretched verses are not
+by Shakespeare. See also Halliwell-Phillips's _Outlines_, i., p. 326. It
+may be noted that ten per cent. was the regular rate of interest at this
+time.
+
+21. _as engrav'd in the plate._ A poor full-page engraving of the
+Stratford monument faces this statement in Rowe's edition.
+
+_He had three daughters._ Rowe is in error. Shakespeare had two daughters,
+and a son named Hamnet. Susannah was the _elder_ daughter.
+
+22. Pope omits _tho' as I ... friendship_ and _venture to_ (lines 10-12).
+
+_Caesar did never wrong_, etc. Cf. _Julius Caesar_, iii. 1. 47, 48, when
+the lines read:
+
+
+    Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause
+    Will he be satisfied.
+
+
+23. Gerard Langbaine in his _Account of the English Dramatick Poets_
+(1691) ascribes to Shakespeare "about forty-six plays, all which except
+three are bound in one volume in Fol., printed London, 1685" (p. 454). The
+three plays not printed in the fourth folio are the _Birth of Merlin, or
+the Child has lost his Father_, a tragi-comedy, said by Langbaine to be by
+Shakespeare and Rowley; _John King of England his troublesome Reign_; and
+the _Death of King John at Swinstead Abbey_. Langbaine thinks that the
+last two "were first writ by our Author, and afterwards revised and
+reduced into one Play by him: that in the Folio being far the better." He
+mentions also the _Arraignment of Paris_, but does not ascribe it to
+Shakespeare, as he has not seen it.
+
+_a late collection of poems_,--_Poems on Affairs of State, from the year
+1620 to the year 1707_, vol. iv.
+
+_Natura sublimis_, etc. Horace, _Epistles_, ii. 1. 165.
+
+The concluding paragraph is omitted by Pope.
+
+
+
+
+John Dennis.
+
+
+24. _Shakespear ... Tragick Stage._ Contrast Rymer's _Short View_, p. 156:
+"Shakespear's genius lay for Comedy and Humour. In Tragedy he appears
+quite out of his element." Cf. Dennis's later statement, p. 40.
+
+25. _the very Original of our English Tragical Harmony._ Cf. Dryden,
+Epistle Dedicatory of the _Rival Ladies_, ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 6, and
+Bysshe, _Art of English Poetry_, 1702, p. 36. See Johnson's criticism of
+this passage, Preface, p. 140.
+
+_Such verse we make_, etc. Dennis makes these two lines illustrate
+themselves.
+
+26. _Jack-Pudding._ See the _Spectator_, No. 47. The term was very common
+at this time for a "merry wag." It had also the more special sense of "one
+attending on a mountebank," as in Etherege's _Comical Revenge_, iii. 4.
+
+_Coriolanus._ Contrast Dennis's opinion of _Coriolanus_ in his letter to
+Steele of 26th March, 1719: "Mr. Dryden has more than once declared to me
+that there was something in this very tragedy of _Coriolanus_, as it was
+writ by Shakespear, that is truly great and truly Roman; and I more than
+once answered him that it had always been my own opinion."
+
+29. _Poetical Justice._ Dennis defended the doctrine of poetical justice
+in the first of the two additional letters published with the letters on
+Shakespeare. Addison had examined this "ridiculous doctrine in modern
+criticism" in the _Spectator_, No. 40 (April 16, 1711). Cf. Pope's account
+of Dennis's "deplorable frenzy" in the _Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris_
+(Pope's _Works_, ed. Elwin and Courthope, x. 459).
+
+30. _Natura fieret._ Horace, _Ars poetica_, 408.
+
+_a circular poet_, _i.e._ a cyclic poet. This is the only example of this
+sense of _circular_ in the _New English Dictionary_.
+
+32. _Hector speaking of Aristotle_,--_Troilis and Cressida_, ii. 2. 166;
+_Milo_, _id._ ii. 3. 258; _Alexander_, _Coriolanus_ v. 4. 23.
+
+_Plutarch._ Though Dennis is right in his conjecture that Shakespeare used
+a translation, the absence of any allusion to North's Plutarch would show
+that he did not know of it. He is in error about Livy. Philemon Holland's
+translation had appeared in 1600.
+
+33. _Offenduntur enim_, etc. _Ars poetica_, 248.
+
+34. _Caesar._ Cf. the criticism of _Julius Caesar_ in Sewell's preface to
+the seventh volume of Pope's Shakespeare, 1725.
+
+36. _Haec igitur_, etc. Cicero, _Pro M. Marcello_, ix.
+
+38. _Julius Caesar._ Dennis alludes to the version of _Julius Caesar_ by
+John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, published in 1722. In the altered
+form a chorus is introduced between the acts, and the "play begins the day
+before Caesar's death, and ends within an hour after it." Buckinghamshire
+wrote also the _Tragedy of Marcus Brutus_.
+
+39. _Dryden_, Preface to the Translation of Ovid's _Epistles_ (1680) _ad
+fin._: "That of _OEnone to Paris_ is in Mr. Cowley's way of imitation only.
+I was desired to say that the author, who is of the fair sex, understood
+not Latin. But if she does not, I am afraid she has given us occasion to
+be ashamed who do" (Ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 243). The author was Mrs. Behn.
+
+_Hudibras_, i. 1, 661. But _Hudibras_ has it slightly differently,--"Though
+out of languages in which," etc.
+
+39. _a Version of two Epistles of Ovid._ The poems in the seventh volume
+of Rowe's edition of Shakespeare include Thomas Heywood's _Amorous Epistle
+of Paris to Helen_ and _Helen to Paris_. They were attributed to
+Shakespeare, till Farmer proved their authorship (p. 203). Cf. Gildon,
+_Essay on the Stage_, 1710, p. vi.
+
+40. _Scriptor_, etc. _Ars poetica_, 120.
+
+41. _The Menechmi._ Dennis's "vehement suspicion" is justified. See above,
+note on p. 9.
+
+_Ben Johnson_, "small Latin and less Greek" (_Verses to the Memory of
+Shakespeare_).
+
+_Milton_, _L'Allegro_, 133: "Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child." The
+same misquotation occurs in Sewell's preface, 1725.
+
+_Dryden_, _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_: "Those who accuse him to have wanted
+learning give him the greater commendation" (ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 80).
+
+42. _Colchus_, etc. _Ars poetica_, 118.
+
+_Siquid tamen_, etc. _Id._ 386. The form _Maeci_ was restored about this
+time by Bentley.
+
+43. _Companies of Players._ See Mr. Sidney Lee's _Life of Shakespeare_, p.
+34.
+
+_we are told by Ben Johnson._ See p. 22. But Heminge and Condell tell us
+so themselves in the preface to the Folio: "His mind and hand went
+together: and what he thought he uttered with that easinesse, that wee
+have scarce received from him a blot in his papers."
+
+_Vos, O._ _Ars poetica_, 291.
+
+_Poets lose half the Praise_, etc. These lines are not by the Earl of
+Roscommon, but by Edmund Waller. They occur in Waller's prefatory verses
+to Roscommon's translation of Horace's _Ars poetica_.
+
+Dennis's criticism of Jonson is apparently inspired by Rymer's remarks on
+_Catiline_ (_Short View_, pp. 159-163). "In short," says Rymer, "it is
+strange that Ben, who understood the turn of Comedy so well, and had found
+the success, should thus grope in the dark and jumble things together
+without head or tail, without rule or proportion, without any reason or
+design."
+
+44. _Vir bonus_, etc. Horace, _Ars poetica_, 445.
+
+45. _ad Populum Phalerae._ Persius, iii. 30.
+
+_Milton._ See Milton's prefatory note to _Samson Agonistes_.
+
+46. _Veneration for Shakespear._ Cf. Dennis's letter to Steele, 26th
+March, 1719: "Ever since I was capable of reading Shakespear, I have
+always had, and have always expressed, that veneration for him which is
+justly his due; of which I believe no one can doubt who has read the Essay
+which I published some years ago upon his Genius and Writings."
+
+_Italian Ballad._ Cf. Dennis's _Essay on the Operas after the Italian
+Manner_, 1706.
+
+
+
+
+Alexander Pope.
+
+
+48. _His Characters._ The same idea had been expressed by Gildon in his
+_Essay on the Stage_, 1710, p. li.: "He has not only distinguish'd his
+principal persons, but there is scarce a messenger comes in but is visibly
+different from all the rest of the persons in the play. So that you need
+not to mention the name of the person that speaks, when you read the play,
+the manners of the persons will sufficiently inform you who it is speaks."
+Cf. also Addison's criticism of Homer, _Spectator_, No. 273: "There is
+scarce a speech or action in the _Iliad_, which the reader may not ascribe
+to the person that speaks or acts, without seeing his name at the head of
+it."
+
+50. _To judge of Shakespear by Aristotle's rules._ This comparison had
+appeared in Farquhar's _Discourse upon Comedy_: "The rules of English
+Comedy don't lie in the compass of Aristotle, or his followers, but in the
+Pit, Box, and Galleries. And to examine into the humour of an English
+audience, let us see by what means our own English poets have succeeded in
+this point. To determine a suit at law we don't look into the archives of
+Greece or Rome, but inspect the reports of our own lawyers, and the acts
+and statutes of our Parliaments; and by the same rule we have nothing to
+do with the models of Menander or Plautus, but must consult Shakespear,
+Johnson, Fletcher, and others, who by methods much different from the
+Ancients have supported the English Stage, and made themselves famous to
+posterity." Cf. also Rowe, p. 15: "it would be hard to judge him by a law
+he knew nothing of."--Is it unnecessary to point out that there are no
+"rules" in Aristotle? The term "Aristotle's rules" was commonly used to
+denote the "rules of the classical drama," which, though based on the
+_Poetics_, were formulated by Italian and French critics of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries.
+
+51. _The Dates of his plays._ Pope here controverts Rowe's statement, p.
+4.
+
+_blotted a line._ See note, p. 43. Though Pope here controverts the
+traditional opinion, he found it to his purpose to accept it in the
+_Epistle to Augustus_, ll. 279-281:
+
+
+    And fluent Shakespear scarce effac'd a line.
+    Ev'n copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
+    The last and greatest art, the art to blot.
+
+
+52. Pope's references to the early editions of the _Merry Wives_ and other
+plays do not prove his assertions. Though an imperfect edition of the
+_Merry Wives_ appeared in 1602, it does not follow that this was "entirely
+new writ" and transformed into the play in the Folio of 1623. The same
+criticism applies to what he says of _Henry V._, of which pirated copies
+appeared in 1600, 1602, and 1608. And he is apparently under the
+impression that the _Contention of York and Lancaster_ and the early play
+of _Hamlet_ were Shakespeare's own work.
+
+53. _Coriolanus and Julius Caesar._ Pope replies tacitly to Dennis's
+criticism of these plays.
+
+_those Poems which pass for his._ The seventh or supplementary volume of
+Rowe's and Pope's editions contained, in addition to some poems by
+Marlowe, translations of Ovid by Thomas Heywood. Like Rowe, Pope has some
+doubt as to the authorship of the poems, but on the score of the
+dedications he attributes to him _Venus and Adonis_ and the _Rape of
+Lucrece_. Both editors ignored the Sonnets. It is doubtful how far
+Shakespeare was indebted to Ovid in his _Venus and Adonis_. He knew
+Golding's translation of the _Metamorphoses_ (1565-67); but _Venus and
+Adonis_ has many points in common with Lodge's _Scillaes Metamorphosis_
+which appeared in 1589. See, however, J. P. Reardon's paper in the
+"Shakespeare Society's Papers," 1847, iii. 143-6, where it is held that
+Lodge is indebted to Shakespeare.
+
+_Plautus._ Cf. Rowe, p. 9. Gildon had claimed for Shakespeare greater
+acquaintance with the Ancients than Rowe had admitted, and Pope had both
+opinions in view when he wrote the present passage. "I think there are
+many arguments to prove," says Gildon, "that he knew at least some of the
+Latin poets, particularly Ovid; two of his Epistles being translated by
+him: His motto to _Venus and Adonis_ is another proof. But that he had
+read Plautus himself, is plain from his _Comedy of Errors_, which is taken
+visibly from the _Menæchmi_ of that poet.... The characters he has in his
+plays drawn of the Romans is a proof that he was acquainted with their
+historians.... I contend not here to prove that he was a perfect master of
+either the Latin or Greek authors; but all that I aim at, is to shew that
+as he was capable of reading some of the Romans, so he had actually read
+Ovid and Plautus, without spoiling or confining his fancy or genius"
+(1710, p. vi).
+
+_Dares Phrygius._ The reference is to the prologue of _Troilus and
+Cressida_. See the note in Theobald's edition, and Farmer, p. 187.
+
+_Chaucer._ See Gildon's remarks on _Troilus and Cressida_, 1710, p. 358.
+
+54. _Ben Johnson._ Pope is here indebted to Betterton. Cf. his remark as
+recorded by Spence, _Anecdotes_, 1820, p. 5. "It was a general opinion
+that Ben Jonson and Shakespeare lived in enmity against one another.
+Betterton has assured me often that there was nothing in it; and that such
+a supposition was founded only on the two parties, which in their lifetime
+listed under one, and endeavoured to lessen the character of the other
+mutually. Dryden used to think that the verses Jonson made on
+Shakespeare's death had something of satire at the bottom; for my part, I
+can't discover any thing like it in them."
+
+_Pessimum genus_, etc. Tacitus, _Agricola_, 41.
+
+_Si ultra placitum_, etc. Virgil, _Eclogues_, vii. 27, 28.
+
+55. _Dryden._ _Discourse concerning Satire, ad init._ (ed. W. P. Ker, ii.,
+p. 18).
+
+_Enter three Witches solus._ "This blunder appears to be of Mr. Pope's own
+invention. It is not to be found in any one of the four folio copies of
+_Macbeth_, and there is no quarto edition of it extant" (Steevens).
+
+56. _Hector's quoting Aristotle._ _Troilus and Cressida_, ii. 2. 166.
+
+57. _those who play the Clowns._ "Act iii., Sc. 4" in Pope's edition, but
+Act iii., Sc. 2 in modern editions.
+
+58. _Procrustes._ Cf. _Spectator_, No. 58.
+
+_Note 2._ In the edition of 1728, Pope added to this note "which last
+words are not in the first quarto edition."
+
+59. _led into the Buttery of the Steward._ "Mr. Pope probably recollected
+the following lines in _The Taming of the Shrew_, spoken by a Lord, who is
+giving directions to his servant concerning some players:
+
+
+    Go, Sirrah, take them to the _buttery_,
+    And give them friendly welcome every one.
+
+
+But he seems not to have observed that the players here introduced were
+_strollers_; and there is no reason to suppose that our author, Heminge,
+Burbage, Lowin, etc., who were licensed by King James, were treated in
+this manner" (Malone).
+
+_London Prodigal._ After these seven plays Pope added in the edition of
+1728 "and a thing call'd the _Double Falshood_" (see Introduction, p.
+xlv). It will be noted that he speaks incorrectly of "eight" plays. In the
+same edition he also inserted _The Comedy of Errors_ between _The Winter's
+Tale_ and _Titus Andronicus_ (top of p. 60).
+
+60. _tho' they were then printed in his name._ His name was given on the
+title-page of _Pericles_, _Sir John Oldcastle_, the _Yorkshire Tragedy_,
+and the _London Prodigal_.
+
+
+
+
+Lewis Theobald.
+
+
+64. _above the Direction of their Tailors._ Cf. Pope, p. 51. The
+succeeding remarks on the individuality of Shakespeare's characters also
+appear to have been suggested by Pope.
+
+65. _wanted a Comment._ Contrast Rowe, p. 1.
+
+66. _Judith_ was Shakespeare's younger daughter (cf. Rowe, p. 21). It is
+now known that Shakespeare was married at the end of 1582. See Mr. Sidney
+Lee's _Life of Shakespeare_, pp. 18-24.
+
+68. _Spenser's Thalia._ Cf. Rowe, pp. 6, 7. The original editions read
+"_Tears of his Muses_."
+
+69. _Rymers Foedera_, vol. xvi., p. 505. _Fletcher_, _i.e._ Lawrence
+Fletcher.
+
+_the Bermuda Islands._ Cf. Theobald's note on "the still-vext Bermoothes,"
+vol. i., p. 13 (1733). Though Shakespeare is probably indebted to the
+account of Sir George Somers's shipwreck on the Bermudas, Theobald is
+wrong, as Farmer pointed out, in saying that the Bermudas were not
+discovered till 1609. A description of the islands by Henry May, who was
+shipwrecked on them in 1593, is given in Hakluyt, 1600, iii., pp. 573-4.
+
+70. _Mr. Pope, or his Graver._ So the quotation appears in the full-page
+illustration facing p. xxxi of Rowe's Account in Pope's edition; but the
+illustration was not included in all the copies, perhaps because of the
+error. The quotation appears correctly in the engraving in Rowe's edition.
+
+72. _New-place._ Queen Henrietta Maria's visit was from 11th to 13th July,
+1643. Theobald's "three weeks" should read "three days." See
+Halliwell-Phillips, _Outlines_, 1886, ii., p. 108.
+
+_We have been told in print_, in _An Answer to Mr. Popes Preface to
+Shakespear.... By a Stroling Player_ [John Roberts], 1729, p. 45.
+
+73. _Complaisance to a bad Taste._ Cf. Rowe, p. 6, Dennis p. 46, and
+Theobald's dedication to _Shakespeare Restored_; yet Theobald himself had
+complied to the bad taste in several pantomimes.
+
+_Nullum sine venia._ Seneca, _Epistles_, 114. 12.
+
+74. _Speret idem._ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 241.
+
+_Indeed to point out_, etc. In the first edition of the Preface, Theobald
+had given "explanations of those beauties that are less obvious to common
+readers." He has unadvisably retained the remark that such explanations
+"should deservedly have a share in a general critic upon the author." The
+"explanations" were omitted probably because they were inspired by
+Warburton.
+
+75. _And therefore the Passages ... from the Classics._ Cf. the following
+passage with Theobald's letter to Warburton of 17th March, 1729-30 (see
+Nichols, _Illustrations_, ii., pp. 564, etc.). The letter throws strong
+light on Theobald's indecision on the question of Shakespeare's learning.
+
+"The very learned critic of our nation" is Warburton himself. See his
+letter to Concanen of 2nd January, 1726 (Malone's _Shakespeare_, 1821,
+xii., p. 158). Cf. Theobald's Preface to _Richard II._, 1720, and
+Whalley's _Enquiry_, 1748, p. 51.
+
+76. _Effusion of Latin Words._ Theobald has omitted a striking passage in
+the original preface. It was shown that Shakespeare's writings, in
+contrast with Milton's, contain few or no Latin phrases, though they have
+many Latin words made English; and this fact was advanced as the truest
+criterion of his knowledge of Latin.
+
+The passage is referred to by Hurd in his _Letter to Mr. Mason on the
+Marks of Imitation_ (1757, p. 74). Hurd thinks that the observation is too
+good to have come from Theobald. His opinion is confirmed by the entire
+omission of the passage in the second edition. Warburton himself claimed
+it as his own. Though the passage was condensed by Theobald, Warburton's
+claim is still represented by the passage from _For I shall find_ (p. 76,
+l. 7) to _Royal Taste_ (l. 36).
+
+77. _Shakespeare ... astonishing force and splendor._ Cf. Pope, p. 50.
+
+_Had Homer_, etc. Cf. Pope, p. 56.
+
+78. _Indulging his private sense._ See p. 61.
+
+_Lipsius_,--_Satyra Menippæa_ (_Opera_, 1611, p. 640).
+
+79. _Sive homo_, etc. Quintus Serenus, _De Medicina_, xlvi., "Hominis ac
+simiae morsui."
+
+80. _Nature of any Distemper ... corrupt Classic._ Cf. _Shakespeare
+Restored_, pp. iv, v.
+
+81. Bentley's edition of _Paradise Lost_ had appeared in 1732.
+
+_the true Duty of an Editor._ A shy hit at Pope's "dull duty of an
+editor," Preface, p. 61.
+
+82. _as I have formerly observ'd_, in the Introduction to _Shakespeare
+Restored_, pp. ii and iv. The paragraph is quoted almost verbatim.
+
+83. _labour'd under flat Nonsense._ Here again Theobald incorporates a
+passage from the Introduction to _Shakespeare Restored_, p. vi.
+
+_Corrections and conjectures._ Yet another passage appropriated from his
+earlier work. The French quotation, however, is new.
+
+_Edition of our author's Poems._ Theobald did not carry out his intention
+of editing the _Poems_. References to the proposed edition will be found
+in Warburton's letters to him of 17th May and 14th October, 1734 (see
+Nichols, _Illustrations_, ii., pp. 634, 654).
+
+The only attempt as yet towards a Shakespearian Glossary is to be found in
+the supplementary volumes of Rowe's and Pope's editions. It is far from
+"copious and complete."
+
+84. _The English are observ'd to produce more Humourists._ See Congreve's
+letter to Dennis _Concerning Humour in Comedy_, 1695.
+
+_Wit lying mostly in the Assemblage of Ideas_, etc. So Locke, _Essay
+concerning the Human Understanding_, Book II., Ch. xi., § 2. The passage
+had been popularised by Addison, _Spectator_, No. 62.
+
+85. _Donne._ Cf. Dryden's criticism of Donne.
+
+86. _a celebrated Writer._ Addison, _Spectator_, No. 297.
+
+_Bossu._ René le Bossu (1631-1680), author of the _Traité du poème épique_
+(1675). An English translation by "W. J." was printed in 1695, and again
+in 1719.
+
+_Dacier._ See note, p. 18.
+
+_Gildon_ showed himself to be of the same school as Rymer in his _Essay on
+the Art, Rise, and Progress of the Stage_ (1710) and his _Art of Poetry_
+(1718); yet his earliest piece of criticism was a vigorous attack on
+Rymer. The title reads curiously in the light of his later pronouncements:
+_Some Reflections on Mr. Rymer's Short View of Tragedy, and an Attempt at
+a Vindication of Shakespear_. It was printed in a volume of _Miscellaneous
+Letters and Essays_ (1694).
+
+87. _Anachronisms._ The passage referred to occurs on pp. 134, 135 of
+_Shakespeare Restored_.
+
+_this Restorer._ See the _Dunciad_ (1729), i. 106, note.
+
+_it not being at all credible_, etc. See p. 56.
+
+_Sir Francis Drake._ Pope had suggested in a note that the imperfect line
+in _1 Henry VI._, i. 1. 56, might have been completed with the words
+"Francis Drake." He had not, however, incorporated the words in the text.
+"I can't guess," he says, "the occasion of the Hemystic, and imperfect
+sense, in this place; 'tis not impossible it might have been fill'd up
+with--Francis Drake--tho' that were a terrible Anachronism (as bad as
+Hector's quoting Aristotle in Troil. and Cress.); yet perhaps, at the time
+that brave Englishman was in his glory, to an English-hearted audience,
+and pronounced by some favourite Actor, the thing might be popular, though
+not judicious; and therefore by some Critick, in favour of the author,
+afterwards struck out. But this is a meer slight conjecture." Theobald has
+a lengthy note on this in his edition. He does not allude to the
+suggestion which he had submitted to Warburton. See Introduction, p. xlvi.
+
+88. _Odyssey._ This passage, to the end of the paragraph, appears in
+Theobald's letter to Warburton of March 17, 1729-30 (Nichols, ii., p.
+566). In the same letter he had expressed his doubts as to whether he
+should include this passage in his proposed pamphlet against Pope, as the
+notes to the _Odyssey_ were written by Broome. He had cast aside these
+scruples now. The preface does not bear out his profession to Warburton
+that he was indifferent to Pope's treatment.
+
+89. David Mallet had just brought out his poem _Of Verbal Criticism_
+(1733) anonymously. It is simply a paraphrase and expansion of Pope's
+statements. "As the design of the following poem is to rally the abuse of
+_Verbal Criticism_, the author could not, without manifest partiality,
+overlook the Editor of Milton and the Restorer of Shakespear"
+(introductory note).
+
+Boswell attributed this "contemptuous mention of Mallet" to Warburton
+(Boswell's Malone, 1821, i., p. 42, n). But it was not claimed by
+Warburton, and there is nothing, except perhaps the vigour of the passage,
+to support Boswell's contention. In the same note Boswell points out that
+the comparison of Shakespeare and Jonson in Theobald's Preface reappears
+in Warburton's note on _Love's Labour's Lost_, Act i., Sc. 1.
+
+_Hang him, Baboon_, etc. _2 Henry IV._, ii. 4. 261.
+
+_Longinus_, _On the Sublime_, vi.
+
+90. _Noble Writer_,--the Earl of Shaftesbury, in his _Characteristicks_:
+"The British Muses, in this Dinn of Arms, may well lie abject and obscure;
+especially being as yet in their mere Infant-State. They have hitherto
+scarce arriv'd to any thing of Shapeliness or Person. They lisp as in
+their Cradles: and their stammering Tongues, which nothing but their Youth
+and Rawness can excuse, have hitherto spoken in wretched Pun and Quibble"
+(1711, i., p. 217).
+
+_Complaints of its Barbarity_, as in Dryden's _Discourse concerning
+Satire, ad fin_ (ed. W. P. Ker, ii., pp. 110, 113).
+
+
+
+
+Sir Thomas Hanmer.
+
+
+92. The "other Gentlemen" who communicated their observations to Hanmer
+include Warburton (see Introduction), the "Rev. Mr. Smith of Harlestone in
+Norfolk" (see Zachary Grey, _Notes on Shakespeare_, Preface), and probably
+Thomas Cooke, the editor of Plautus (see _Correspondence of Hanmer_, ed.
+Bunbury, p. 229).
+
+93. _much obliged to them._ Amid the quarrels of Pope, Theobald, and
+Warburton, it is pleasant to find an editor admitting some merit in his
+predecessors.
+
+_what Shakespeare ought to have written._ Cf. the following passage in the
+_Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet_ attributed to Hanmer: "The former
+[Theobald] endeavours to give us an author as he is: the latter [Pope], by
+the correctness and excellency of his own genius, is often tempted to give
+us an author as he thinks he ought to be." Theobald, it is said, is
+"generally thought to have understood our author best" (p. 4).
+
+_Henry V._, iii. 4.
+
+94. _Merchant of Venice_, iii. 5. 48.
+
+Hanmer's Glossary, given at the end of vol. vi., shows a distinct advance
+in every way on the earlier glossary in the supplementary volume to Rowe's
+and to Pope's edition. It is much fuller, though it runs only to a dozen
+pages, and more scholarly.
+
+95. _fairest impressions_, etc. The edition is indeed a beautiful piece of
+printing. Each play is preceded by a full-page plate engraved by Gravelot
+from designs by Francis Hayman, or, as in vol. iv., by himself. (See
+_Correspondence of Hanmer_, pp. 83-4.)
+
+95. _his Statue._ The statue in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey,
+erected by public subscription in 1741. See the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for
+February, 1741, p. 105: "A fine Monument is erected in _Westminster Abbey_
+to the Memory of _Shakespear_, by the Direction of the Earl of
+_Burlington_, Dr. _Mead_, Mr. _Pope_, and Mr. _Martin_. Mr. _Fleetwood_,
+Master of _Drury-Lane_ Theatre, and Mr. _Rich_, of that of
+_Covent-Garden_, gave each a Benefit, arising from one of his own Plays,
+towards it, and the Dean and Chapter made a present of the Ground. The
+Design, by Mr. _Kent_, was executed by Mr. _Scheemaker_."
+
+
+
+
+William Warburton.
+
+
+96. _the excellent Discourse which follows_, _i.e._ Pope's Preface, which
+was reprinted by Warburton along with Rowe's Account of Shakespeare.
+
+101. _Essays, Remarks, Observations_, etc. Warburton apparently refers to
+the following works:
+
+_Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, written by Mr.
+William Shakespeare._ London, 1736. Perhaps by Sir Thomas Hanmer.
+
+_An Essay towards fixing the true Standards of Wit, Humour, Raillery,
+Satire, and Ridicule. To which is added an Analysis of the Characters of
+an Humourist, Sir John Falstaff, Sir Roger de Coverley, and Don Quixote._
+London, 1744. By Corbyn Morris, who signs the Dedication.
+
+_Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth: with Remarks on Sir
+Thomas Hanmer's Edition of Shakespeare. To which is affixed Proposals for
+a new Edition of Skakespear, with a Specimen._ London, 1745. By Samuel
+Johnson, though anonymous.
+
+_Critical Observations on Shakespeare._ By John Upton, Prebendary of
+Rochester. London, 1746. Second edition, with a preface replying to
+Warburton, 1748.
+
+_An Essay upon English Tragedy. With Remarks upon the Abbé de Blanc's
+Observations on the English Stage._ By William Guthrie, Esq. [1747.]
+
+The last of these may not have appeared, however, till after Warburton's
+edition.
+
+Johnson is said by Boswell to have ever entertained a grateful remembrance
+of this allusion to him "at a time when praise was of value." But though
+the criticism is merited, is it too sinister a suggestion that it was
+prompted partly by the reference in Johnson's pamphlet to "the learned Mr.
+Warburton"? When Johnson's edition appeared in 1765, Warburton expressed a
+very different opinion (see Nichols, _Anecdotes_, v., p. 595).
+
+101-105. _whole Compass of Criticism._ Cf. Theobald's account of the
+"Science of Criticism," pp. 81, etc., which Warburton appears to have
+suggested.
+
+101. _Canons of literal Criticism._ This phrase suggested the title of the
+ablest and most damaging attack on Warburton's edition,--_The Canons of
+Criticism, and Glossary, being a Supplement to Mr. Warburton's Edition of
+Shakespear._ The author was Thomas Edwards (1699-1757), a "gentleman of
+Lincoln's Inn," who accordingly figures in the notes to the _Dunciad_, iv.
+568. When the book first appeared in 1748 it was called _A Supplement_,
+etc.... _Being the Canons of Criticism_. It reached a seventh edition in
+1765.
+
+103. _Rymer_, _Short View of Tragedy_ (1693), pp. 95, 6.
+
+105. _as Mr. Pope hath observed._ Preface, p. 47.
+
+_Dacier_, _Bossu._ See notes, pp. 18 and 86.
+
+_René Rapin_ (1621-1687). His fame as a critic rests on his _Réflexions
+sur la Poétique d' Aristote et sur les Ouvrages des Poètes anciens et
+modernes_ (1674), which was Englished by Rymer immediately on its
+publication. His treatise _De Carmine Pastorali_, of which a translation
+is included in Creech's _Idylliums of Theocritus_ (1684), was used by Pope
+for the preface to his _Pastorals_. An edition of _The Whole Critical
+Works of Monsieur Rapin ... newly translated into English by several
+Hands_, 2 vols., appeared in 1706; it is not, however, complete.
+
+_John Oldmixon_ (1673-1742), who, like Dennis and Gildon, has a place in
+the _Dunciad_, was the author of _An Essay on Criticism, as it regards
+Design, Thought, and Expression in Prose and Verse_ (1728) and _The Arts
+of Logick and Rhetorick, illustrated by examples taken out of the best
+authors_ (1728). The latter is based on the _Manière de bien penser_ of
+Bouhours.
+
+_A certain celebrated Paper_,--_The Spectator_.
+
+_semper acerbum_, etc. Virgil, _Aeneid_, v. 49.
+
+106. _Note_, "See his Letters to me." These letters are not extant.
+
+108. _Saint Chrysostom ... Aristophanes._ This had been a commonplace in
+the discussions at the end of the seventeenth century, in England and
+France, on the morality of the drama.
+
+_Ludolf Kuster_ (1670-1716) appears also in the _Dunciad_, iv., l. 237.
+His edition of Suidas was published, through Bentley's influence, by the
+University of Cambridge in 1705. He also edited Aristophanes (1710), and
+wrote _De vero usu Verborum Mediorum apud Graecos_. Cf. Farmer's _Essay_,
+p. 176.
+
+_who thrust himself into the employment._ Hanmer's letters to the
+University of Oxford do not bear out Warburton's statement.
+
+109. Gilles Ménage (1613-1692). _Les Poésies de M. de Malherbe avec les
+Observations de M. Ménage_ appeared in 1666.
+
+Selden's "Illustrations" or notes appeared with the first part of
+_Polyolbion_ in 1612. This allusion was suggested by a passage in a letter
+from Pope of 27th November, 1742: "I have a particular reason to make you
+interest yourself in me and my writings. It will cause both them and me to
+make the better figure to posterity. A very mediocre poet, one Drayton, is
+yet taken some notice of, because Selden writ a few notes on one of his
+poems" (ed. Elwin and Courthope, ix., p. 225).
+
+110. _Verborum proprietas_, etc. Quintilian, _Institut. Orat._, Prooem.
+16.
+
+Warburton alludes to the edition of Beaumont and Fletcher "by the late Mr.
+Theobald, Mr. Seward of Eyam in Derbyshire, and Mr. Sympson of
+Gainsborough," which appeared in ten volumes in 1750. The long and
+interesting preface is by Seward. Warburton's reference would not have
+been so favourable could he have known Seward's opinion of his
+Shakespeare. See the letter printed in the _Correspondence of Hanmer_, ed.
+Bunbury, pp. 352, etc.
+
+The edition of _Paradise Lost_ is that by Thomas Newton (1704-1782),
+afterwards Bishop of Bristol. It appeared in 1749, and a second volume
+containing the other poems was added in 1752. In the preface Newton
+gratefully acknowledges this recommendation, and alludes with pride to the
+assistance he had received from Warburton, who had proved himself to be
+"the best editor of Shakespeare."
+
+_Some dull northern Chronicles_, etc. Cf. the _Dunciad_, iii. 185-194.
+
+111. _a certain satyric Poet._ The reference is to Zachary Grey's edition
+of _Hudibras_ (1744). Yet Warburton had contributed to it. In the preface
+"the Rev. and learned Mr. William Warburton" is thanked for his "curious
+and critical observations."
+
+Grey's "coadjutor" was "the reverend Mr. Smith of Harleston in Norfolk,"
+as Grey explains in the preface to the _Notes on Shakespeare_. In his
+preface to _Hudibras_, Grey had given Smith no prominence in his long list
+of helpers. Smith had also assisted Hanmer.
+
+In 1754 Grey brought out his _Critical, Historical, and Explanatory Notes
+on Shakespeare_, and in 1755 retaliated on Warburton in his _Remarks upon
+a late edition of Shakespear ... to which is prefixed a defence of the
+late Sir Thomas Hanmer_. Grey appears to be the author also of _A word or
+two of advice to William Warburton, a dealer in many words_, 1746.
+
+_our great Philosopher_, Sir Isaac Newton. His remark is recorded by
+William Whiston in the _Historical Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Samuel
+Clarke_ (1730), p. 143: "To observe such laymen as _Grotius_, and
+_Newton_, and _Lock_, laying out their noblest Talents in sacred Studies;
+while such Clergymen as Dr. _Bentley_ and Bishop _Hare_, to name no others
+at present, have been, in the Words of Sir _Isaac Newton_, fighting with
+one another _about a Playback_ [_Terence_]: This is a Reproach upon them,
+their holy Religion, and holy Function plainly intolerable." Warburton's
+defence of himself in the previous pages must have been inspired partly by
+the "fanatical turn" of this "wild writer." Whiston would hardly excuse
+Clarke for editing Homer till he "perceived that the pains he had taken
+about Homer were when he was much younger, and the notes rather
+transcrib'd than made new"; and Warburton is careful to state that his
+Shakespearian studies were amongst his "younger amusements." _Francis
+Hare_ (1671-1740), successively Dean of Worcester, Dean of St. Paul's,
+Bishop of St. Asaph, and Bishop of Chichester. For his quarrel with
+Bentley, see Monk's _Life of Bentley_, ii., pp. 217, etc. Hare is referred
+to favourably in the _Dunciad_ (iii. 204), and was a friend of Warburton.
+
+_Words are the money_, etc. Hobbes, _Leviathan_, Part I., ch. iv.: "For
+words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are
+the money of fools."
+
+
+
+
+Samuel Johnson.
+
+
+113. _the poems of Homer._ Cf. Johnson's remark recorded in the _Diary of
+the Right Hon. William Windham_, August, 1784 (ed. 1866, p. 17): "The
+source of everything in or out of nature that can serve the purpose of
+poetry to be found in Homer."
+
+114. _his century._ Cf. Horace, _Epistles_, ii. 1. 39, and Pope, _Epistle
+to Augustus_, 55, 56.
+
+_Nothing can please many_, etc. This had been the theme of the 59th number
+of the _Idler_.
+
+115. _Hierocles._ See the _Asteia_ attributed to Hierocles, No. 9
+(_Hieroclis Commentarius in Aurea Carmina_, ed. Needham, 1709, p. 462).
+
+116. _Pope._ Preface, p. 48.
+
+117. _Dennis._ See pp. 26, etc. In replying to Voltaire, Johnson has in
+view, throughout the whole preface, the essay _Du Théâtre anglais, par
+Jerome Carré_, 1761 (_Oeuvres_, 1785, vol. 61). He apparently ignores the
+earlier _Discours sur la tragédie à Milord Bolingbroke_, 1730, and
+_Lettres Philosophiques_ (dix-huitième lettre, "Sur la tragédie"), 1734.
+Voltaire replied thus to Johnson in the passage "Du Théâtre anglais" in
+the _Dictionnaire philosophique_: "J'ai jeté les yeux sur une édition de
+Shakespeare, donnée par le sieur Samuel Johnson. J'y ai vu qu'on y traite
+de _petits esprits_ les étrangers qui sont étonnés que, dans les pièces de
+ce grand Shakespeare, 'un senateur romain fasse le bouffon, et qu'un roi
+paraisse sur le théâtre en ivrogne.' Je ne veux point soupçonner le sieur
+Johnson d'être un mauvais plaisant, et d'aimer trop le vin; mais je trouve
+un peu extraordinaire qu'il compte la bouffonnerie et l'ivrognerie parmi
+les beautés du théâtre tragique; la raison qu'il en donne n'est pas moins
+singulière. 'Le poète, dit il, dédaigne ces distinctions accidentelles de
+conditions et de pays, comme un peintre qui, content d'avoir peint la
+figure, néglige la draperie.' La comparaison serait plus juste s'il
+parlait d'un peintre qui, dans un sujet noble, introduirait des grotesques
+ridicules, peindrait dans la bataille d'Arbelles Alexandre-le-Grand monté
+sur un âne, et la femme de Darius buvant avec des goujats dans un
+cabaret," etc. (1785, vol. 48, p. 205). On the question of Voltaire's
+attitude to Shakespeare, see Monsieur Jusserand's _Shakespeare en France_,
+1898, and Mr. Lounsbury's _Shakespeare and Voltaire_, 1902.
+
+118. _comic and tragic scenes._ The ensuing passage gives stronger
+expression to what Johnson had said in the _Rambler_, No. 156.
+
+_I do not recollect_, etc. Johnson forgets the _Cyclops_ of Euripides.
+Steevens compares the passage in the _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, where
+Dryden says that "Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Seneca never
+meddled with comedy."
+
+119. _instruct by pleasing._ Cf. Horace, _Ars poetica_, 343-4.
+
+_alternations_ (line 15). The original reads _alterations_.
+
+120. _tragedies to-day and comedies to-morrow._ As the _Aglaura_ of
+Suckling and the _Vestal Virgin_ of Sir Robert Howard, which have a double
+fifth act. Downes records that about 1662 _Romeo and Juliet_ "was made
+into a tragi-comedy by Mr. James Howard, he preserving Romeo and Juliet
+alive; so that when the tragedy was reviv'd again, 'twas play'd
+alternately, tragically one day and tragi-comical another" (_Roscius
+Anglicanus_, ed. 1789, p. 31: cf. Genest, _English Stage_, i., p. 42).
+
+120-1. _Rhymer and Voltaire._ See _Du Théâtre anglais_, _passim_, and
+_Short View_, pp. 96, etc. The passage is aimed more directly at Voltaire
+than at Rymer. Like Rowe, Johnson misspells Rymer's name.
+
+122. _Shakespeare has likewise faults._ Cf. Johnson's letter of 16th
+October, 1765, to Charles Burney, quoted by Boswell: "We must confess the
+faults of our favourite to gain credit to our praise of his excellences.
+He that claims, either in himself or for another, the honours of
+perfection, will surely injure the reputation which he designs to assist."
+
+124. _Pope._ Preface, p. 56.
+
+_In tragedy_, etc. Cf. Pope (Spence's _Anecdotes_, 1820, p. 173):
+"Shakespeare generally used to stiffen his style with high words and
+metaphors for the speeches of his kings and great men: he mistook it for a
+mark of greatness."
+
+125. _What he does best, he soon ceases to do._ This sentence first
+appears in the edition of 1778.
+
+126. _the unities._ Johnson's discussion of the three unities is perhaps
+the most brilliant passage in the whole preface. Cf. the _Rambler_, No.
+156; Farquhar, _Discourse upon Comedy_ (1702); _Some Remarks on the
+Tragedy of Hamlet_ (1736); Upton, _Critical Observations_ (1746), 1. ix.;
+Fielding, _Tom Jones_, prefatory chapter of Book V.; Alexander Gerard,
+_Essay on Taste_ (1758); Daniel Webb, _Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry_
+(1762); and Kames, _Elements of Criticism_ (1762). "Attic" Hurd had
+defended Gothic "unity of design" in his _Letters on Chivalry_ (1762).
+
+127. _Corneille_ published his _Discours dramatiques_, the second of which
+dealt with the three unities, in 1660; but he had observed the unities
+since the publication of the _Sentiments de l'Académie sur le Cid_ (1638).
+
+130. _Venice ... Cyprus._ See Voltaire, _Du Théâtre anglais_, vol. 61, p.
+377 (ed. 1785), and cf. Rymer's _Short View_.
+
+131. _Non usque_, etc. Lucan, _Pharsalia_, iii. 138-140.
+
+132. _Every man's performances_, etc. Cf. Johnson, _Life of Dryden_: "To
+judge rightly of an author, we must transport ourselves to his time, and
+examine what were the wants of his contemporaries, and what were his means
+of supplying them."
+
+_Nations have their infancy_, etc. Cf. Johnson's Dedication to Mrs.
+Lennox's _Shakespear Illustrated_, 1753, pp. viii, ix. See note, p. 175.
+
+133. _As you like it._ Theobald, Upton, and Zachary Grey were satisfied
+that _As you like it_ was founded on "the _Coke's Tale of Gamelyn in
+Chaucer_." But Johnson knows that the immediate source of the play is
+Thomas Lodge's _Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie_. The presence of the
+_Tale of Gamelyn_ in several MSS. of the _Canterbury Tales_ accounted for
+its erroneous ascription to Chaucer. It was still in MS. in Shakespeare's
+days. Cf. Farmer's _Essay_, p. 178.
+
+_old Mr. Cibber_,--Colley Cibber (1671-1757), actor and poet-laureate.
+
+_English ballads._ Johnson refers to the ballad of _King Leire and his
+Three Daughters_. But the ballad is of later date than the play. Cf. p.
+178.
+
+134. _Voltaire_, _Du Théâtre anglais_, vol. 61, p. 366 (ed. 1785). Cf.
+_Lettres philosophiques, Sur la Tragédie, ad fin._, and _Le Siècle de
+Louis XIV._, ch. xxxiv.
+
+Similar comparisons of Shakespeare and Addison occur in William Guthrie's
+_Essay upon English Tragedy_ (1747) and Edward Young's _Conjectures on
+Original Composition_ (1759). The former may have been inspired by
+Johnson's conversation. Cf. also Warburton's comparison incorporated in
+Theobald's preface of 1733.
+
+135. _A correct and regular writer_, etc. Cf. the comparison of Dryden and
+Pope in Johnson's life of the latter: "Dryden's page is a natural field,
+rising into inequalities and diversified by the varied exuberance of
+abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe and
+levelled by the roller." The "garden-and-forest" comparison had already
+appeared, in a versified form, in the _Connoisseur_, No. 125 (17th June,
+1756). Cf. also Mrs. Piozzi's _Anecdotes of Johnson_, p. 59, "Corneille is
+to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest."
+
+135. _small Latin and less Greek._ Ben Jonson's poem _To the Memory of Mr.
+William Shakespeare_, l. 31. The first edition of the Preface read by
+mistake _no Greek_. Cf. Kenrick's _Review_, 1765, p. 106, the _London
+Magazine_, October, 1765, p. 536, and Farmer's _Essay_, p. 166, note.
+
+136. _Go before, I'll follow._ This remark was made by Zachary Grey in his
+_Notes on Shakespeare_, vol. ii., p. 53. He says that "Go you before and I
+will follow you," _Richard III._, i. 1. 144, is "in imitation of
+_Terence_, 'I prae, sequar.' _Terentii Andr._, i., l. 144."
+
+_The Menaechmi of Plautus._ See note on p. 9, and cf. Farmer, p. 200.
+
+137. _Pope._ Pp. 52, 53.
+
+_Rowe._ P. 4.
+
+138. _Chaucer._ Johnson has probably his eye on Pope's statement, p. 53.
+
+139. _Boyle._ See Birch's _Life of Robert Boyle_, 1744, pp. 18, 19.
+
+_Dewdrops from a lion's mane._ _Troilus and Cressida_, iii. 3. 224.
+
+140. _Dennis._ P. 25.
+
+_Hieronymo._ See Farmer's _Essay_, p. 210.
+
+_there being no theatrical piece_, etc. "Dr. Johnson said of these writers
+generally that 'they were sought after because they were scarce, and would
+not have been scarce had they been much esteemed.' His decision is neither
+true history nor sound criticism. They were esteemed, and they deserved to
+be so" (Hazlitt, _Lectures on the Age of Elizabeth_, i.).
+
+141. _the book of some modern critick._ Upton's _Critical Observations on
+Shakespeare_, Book iii. (ed. 1748, pp. 294-365).
+
+_present profit._ Cf. Pope, _Epistle to Augustus_, 69-73.
+
+142. _declined into the vale of years._ _Othello_, iii. 3. 265.
+
+143. _as Dr. Warburton supposes._ P. 96.
+
+_Not because a poet was to be published by a poet_, as Warburton had said.
+P. 97.
+
+_As of the other editor's_, etc. In the first edition of the Preface, this
+sentence had read thus: "Of _Rowe_, as of all the editors, I have
+preserved the preface, and have likewise retained the authour's life,
+though not written with much elegance or spirit." This criticism is passed
+on Rowe's Account as emended by Pope, but is more applicable to it in its
+original form.
+
+144. The spurious plays were added to the third Folio (1663) when it was
+reissued in 1664.
+
+_the dull duty of an editor._ P. 61. Cf. the condensed criticism of Pope's
+edition in the _Life of Pope_.
+
+146. Johnson's appreciation of Hanmer was shared by Zachary Grey. "Sir
+Thomas Hanmer," says Grey, "has certainly done more towards the emendation
+of the text than any one, and as a fine gentleman, good scholar, and (what
+was best of all) a good Christian, who has treated every editor with
+decency, I think his memory should have been exempt from ill treatment of
+every kind, after his death." Johnson's earliest criticism of Hanmer's
+edition was unfavourable.
+
+147. Warburton was incensed by this passage and the many criticisms
+throughout the edition, but Johnson's prediction that "he'll not come out,
+he'll only growl in his den" proved correct. He was content to show his
+annoyance in private letters. See note, p. 101.
+
+148. _Homer's hero._ "Achilles" in the first edition.
+
+149. _The Canons of Criticism._ See note, p. 101. Cf. Johnson's criticism
+of Edwards as recorded by Boswell: "Nay (said Johnson) he has given him
+some sharp hits to be sure; but there is no proportion between the two
+men; they must not be named together. A fly, Sir, may sting a stately
+horse, and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a
+horse still" (ed. Birkbeck Hill, i. 263).
+
+_The Revisal of Shakespear's text_ was published anonymously by Benjamin
+Heath (1704-1766) in 1765. According to the preface it had been written
+about 1759 and was intended as "a kind of supplement to the _Canons of
+Criticism_." The announcement of Johnson's edition induced Heath to
+publish it: "Notwithstanding the very high opinion the author had ever,
+and very deservedly, entertained of the understanding, genius, and very
+extensive knowledge of this distinguished writer, he thought he saw
+sufficient reason to collect, from the specimen already given on
+_Macbeth_, that their critical sentiments on the text of Shakespear would
+very frequently, and very widely, differ." In the first three editions of
+the Preface the title is given incorrectly as _The Review_, etc. See note,
+p. 171.
+
+_girls with spits._ _Coriolanus_, iv. 4. 5 (iv. 3. 5 in Johnson's own
+edition): "lest that thy wives with spits, and boys with stones, In puny
+battle slay me."
+
+_A falcon tow'ring._ _Macbeth_, ii. 4. 12. The first edition read, "An
+eagle tow'ring," etc.
+
+150. _small things make mean men proud._ _2 Henry VI._, iv. 1. 106.
+
+154. _collectors of these rarities._ This passage is said to have been
+aimed specially at Garrick. At least Garrick took offence at it. On 22nd
+January, 1766, Joseph Warton writes to his brother that "Garrick is
+intirely off from Johnson, and cannot, he says, forgive him his
+insinuating that he withheld his old editions, which always were open to
+him" (Wooll's _Biographical Memoirs of Joseph Warton_, 1806, p. 313). Cf.
+the _London Magazine_, October, 1765, p. 538.
+
+155. _Huetius._ Pierre Daniel Huet (1630-1721), bishop of Avranches,
+author of _De Interpretation libri duo: quorum prior est de optimo genere
+interpretandi, alter de claris interpretibus_, 1661. The best known of his
+French works is the _Traité de l'origine de romans_. See _Huetiana_, 1722,
+and _Memoirs of Huet_, translated by John Aikin, 1810.
+
+_four intervals in the play._ Cf. _Rambler_, No. 156.
+
+157. _by railing at the stupidity_, etc. Johnson has Warburton in his mind
+here, though the description is applicable to others.
+
+158. _Criticks, I saw_, etc. Pope, _Temple of Fame_, 37-40.
+
+_the Bishop of Aleria._ Giovanni Antonio Andrea (Joannes Andreas), 1417-c.
+1480, successively bishop of Accia and Aleria, librarian and secretary to
+Pope Sixtus IV., and editor of Herodotus, Livy, Lucan, Ovid, Quintilian,
+etc.
+
+160. _Dryden_, in the _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_. In the _Life of Dryden_
+Johnson refers to this passage as a "perpetual model of encomiastic
+criticism," adding that the editors and admirers of Shakespeare, in all
+their emulation of reverence, cannot "boast of much more than of having
+diffused and paraphrased this epitome of excellence."
+
+_should want a commentary._ Contrast Rowe, Account, _ad init._ In the
+editions of 1773 and 1778 Johnson ended the preface with the following
+paragraph: "Of what has been performed in this revisal, an account is
+given in the following pages by Mr. Steevens, who might have spoken both
+of his own diligence and sagacity, in terms of greater self-approbation,
+without deviating from modesty or truth."
+
+
+
+
+Richard Farmer.
+
+
+_Joseph Cradock_ (1742-1826) had been a student at Emmanuel College,
+Cambridge. He left the University without a degree, but in 1765 was
+granted the honorary degree of M.A. by the Chancellor, the Duke of
+Newcastle. His _Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs_ appeared in 1828.
+
+162. "_Were it shewn_" _says some one._ See the review of Farmer's _Essay_
+in the _Critical Review_ of January, 1767 (vol. xxiii., p. 50).
+
+163. _Peter Burman_ (1668-1741), Professor at Utrecht and at Leyden;
+editor of Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Quintilian, and other Latin classics.
+
+"_Truly_," _as Mr. Dogberry says._ _Much Ado_, iii. 5. 22.
+
+_Burgersdicius_,--Franco Burgersdijck (1590-1629), Dutch logician,
+Professor at Leyden. His _Institutionum logicarum libri duo_ was for long
+a standard text-book. Cf. Goldsmith, _Life of Parnell, ad init._: "His
+progress through the college course of study was probably marked with but
+little splendour; his imagination might have been too warm to relish the
+cold logic of Burgersdicius." See also the _Dunciad_, iv. 198.
+
+_Locke._ This paragraph is a reply to an argument in the _Critical Review_
+(xxiii., pp. 47, 48).
+
+_Quotation from Lilly._ See p. 201.
+
+_the Water-poet_, John Taylor (1580-1653); cf. Farmer's note, p. 212.
+
+The quotation is from _Taylor's Motto_ (Spenser Society Reprint of Folio
+of 1630, p. 217):--
+
+
+    I was well entred (forty Winters since)
+    As far as _possum_ in my _Accidence_;
+    And reading but from _possum_ to _posset_,
+    There I was mir'd, and could no further get.
+
+
+In his _Thiefe_ he says "all my schollership is schullership" (_id._, p.
+282).
+
+164. _held horses at the door of the playhouse._ This anecdote was given
+in Theophilus Cibber's _Lives of the Poets_, 1753, i., p. 130. Johnson
+appended it, in his edition, to Rowe's _Account of Shakespeare_ (ed. 1765,
+p. clii), and it was printed in the same year in the _Gentleman's
+Magazine_ (xxxv., p. 475). The story was told to Pope by Rowe, who got it
+from Betterton, who in turn had heard it from Davenant; but Rowe wisely
+doubted its authenticity and did not insert it in his _Account_ (see the
+Variorum edition of 1803, i., pp. 120-122).--Farmer makes fun of it
+here,--and uses it to vary the _Critical_ reviewer's description--"as naked
+with respect to all literary merit as he was when he first went under the
+ferula" (_Crit. Rev._ xxiii., p. 50).
+
+_Dodsley_, Robert (1703-1764), publisher and author, declared himself
+"Untutored by the love of Greece or Rome" in his blank verse poem
+_Agriculture_, 1753, canto ii., line 319. His _Toy-Shop, a Dramatick
+Satire,_ was acted and printed in 1735. The quotation is not verbally
+accurate; see the _New British Theatre_, 1787, xvii., p. 48.
+
+_A word of exceeding good command._ _2 Henry IV._, iii. 2. 84.
+
+165. _learned Rubbish._ Cf. Pope, _Essay on Criticism_, line 613.
+
+_Paths of Nature._ Cf. Prior, _Charity_, line 25.
+
+_one of the first criticks of the age._ Dr. Johnson: see Introduction, p.
+xxvii.
+
+_a brother of the craft._ "Mr. Seward, in his Preface to _Beaumont and
+Fletcher_, 10 vols. 8vo., 1750" (Farmer). Cf. Theobald, Introduction to
+_Shakespeare Restored_: "Shakespeare's works have always appear'd to me
+like what he makes his Hamlet compare the world to, an _unweeded Garden
+grown to Seed_."
+
+_contrary to the statute._ See Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 136, etc.
+
+166. _Small Latin and less Greek._ "This passage of Ben. Jonson, so often
+quoted, is given us in the admirable preface to the late edition, with a
+various reading, 'Small Latin and _no_ Greek'; which hath been held up to
+the publick as a modern sophistication: yet whether an error or not, it
+was adopted above a century ago by W. Towers, in a panegyrick on
+Cartwright. His eulogy, with more than fifty others, on this now forgotten
+poet, was prefixed to the edit. 1651" (Farmer). Johnson corrected the
+error in subsequent editions. See note, p. 135.
+
+"_darling project_," etc. Kenrick, _Review of Dr. Johnson's New Edition of
+Shakespeare_, 1765, p. 106: "Your darling project ... of invidiously
+representing him as a _varlet_, one of the illiterate vulgar."
+
+166. _braying faction._ See _Don Quixote_, ii. 25 and 27. _those who
+accuse him_, etc. Dryden, _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_.
+
+160. "Greatest commendation" should read "greater commendation."
+
+_editor in form._ See Warburton, p. 97.
+
+_sufficient to decide the controversy._ See Johnson, p. 135.
+
+167. _whose memory he honoured._ Farmer has added to the quotation from
+Jonson's Poem "To the Memory of my Beloved Mr. William Shakespeare" a
+phrase from the passage "De Shakespeare Nostrati" in Jonson's
+_Discoveries_: "I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side
+idolatry as much as any."
+
+_"__Jealousy,__"__ cries Mr. Upton._ In his _Critical Observations_, 1748,
+p. 5.
+
+_Drayton_, "In his Elegie on Poets and Poesie, p. 206. Fol., 1627"
+(Farmer).
+
+_Digges_, Leonard (1588-1635). "From his Poem 'upon Mister William
+Shakespeare,' intended to have been prefixed, with the other of his
+composition, to the folio of 1623: and afterward printed in several
+miscellaneous collections: particularly the spurious edition of
+Shakespeare's Poems, 1640. Some account of him may be met with in Wood's
+_Athenae_" (Farmer).
+
+_Suckling._ _Fragmenta Aurea_, 1646, p. 35:
+
+
+    The sweat of learned _Johnson's_ brain
+    And gentle _Shakespear's_ easier strain.
+
+
+_Denham_ "On Mr. Abraham Cowley," _Poems_, 1671, p. 90:
+
+
+    Old Mother Wit and Nature gave
+    _Shakespear_ and _Fletcher_ all they have.
+
+
+_Milton._ _L'Allegro_, 134.
+
+_Dryden._ _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_: see p. 160.
+
+_some one else._ Edward Young, the author of _Night Thoughts_, in his
+_Conjectures on Original Composition_, 1759, p. 31.
+
+168. _Hales of Eton._ See p. 8.
+
+_Fuller_,--_Worthies of England_, 1662, "Warwickshire," p. 126: "Indeed his
+Learning was very little, so that as _Cornish diamonds_ are not polished
+by any Lapidary, but are pointed and smoothed even as they are taken out
+of the Earth, so _nature_ it self was all the _art_ which was used upon
+him." The concluding phrase of Farmer's quotation is taken from an earlier
+portion of Fuller's description: "William Shakespeare ... in whom three
+eminent Poets may seem in some sort to be compounded, 1. _Martial_ ... 2.
+_Ovid_ ... 3. _Plautus_, who was an exact comedian, yet never any scholar,
+as our _Shakespeare_ (if alive) would confess himself."
+
+_untutored lines._ Dedication of the _Rape of Lucrece_.
+
+_Mr. Glldon._ "Hence perhaps the _ill-starr'd rage_ between this critick
+and his elder brother, John Dennis, so pathetically lamented in the
+_Dunciad_. Whilst the former was persuaded that 'the man who doubts of the
+learning of Shakespeare hath none of his own,' the latter, above regarding
+the attack in his _private_ capacity, declares with great patriotick
+vehemence that 'he who allows Shakespeare had learning, and a familiar
+acquaintance with the Ancients, ought to be looked upon as a detractor
+from the glory of Great Britain.' Dennis was expelled his college for
+attempting to stab a man in the dark: Pope would have been glad of this
+anecdote" (Farmer). Farmer supplied the details in a letter to Isaac Reed
+dated Jan. 28, 1794: see the _European Magazine_, June, 1794, pp. 412-3.
+
+_Sewell_, in the preface to the seventh volume of Pope's Shakespear, 1725.
+
+_Pope._ See p. 52.
+
+_Theobald._ See p. 75.
+
+_Warburton_, in his notes to Shakespeare, _passim_.
+
+169. _Upton_, in his _Critical Observations_, 1748, pp. 3 and 5.
+
+"_Hath hard words_," etc. _Hudibras_, 1. i. 85-6.
+
+_trochaic dimeter_, etc. See Upton, _Critical Observations_, p. 366, etc.
+
+"_it was a learned age_," etc. _Id._, p. 5. Cf. Hurd's _Marks of
+Imitation_, 1757, p. 24.
+
+_Grey_, in his _Notes on Shakespeare_, 1754, vol. i., p. vii.
+
+_Dodd_, William (1729-1777), the forger, editor of the _Beauties of
+Shakespeare_, 1752.
+
+_Whalley._ Farmer is here unfair to Whalley. The _Enquiry into the
+Learning of Shakespeare_ shows plainly that Whalley preferred Shakespeare
+to Jonson. Further, his _Enquiry_ was earlier than his edition of Jonson.
+In it Whalley expresses the hope "that some Gentleman of Learning would
+oblige the Public with a correct Edition" (p. 23).
+
+170. _Addison ... Chevy Chase._ See the _Spectator_, Nos. 70 and 74 (May,
+1711).
+
+_Wagstaffe_, William (1685-1725), ridiculed Addison's papers on _Chevy
+Chase_ in _A Comment upon the History of Tom Thumb_, 1711.
+
+_Marks of Imitation._ Hurd's _Letter to Mr. Mason, on the Marks of
+Imitation_ was printed in 1757. It was added to his edition of Horace's
+Epistles to the Pisos and Augustus.
+
+_as Mat. Prior says_,--_Alma_, i. 241: "And save much Christian ink's
+effusion."
+
+_Read Libya._ Upton, _Critical Observations_, p. 255.
+
+171. _Heath._ "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 Mr. Warburton's
+representation' " (Farmer).
+
+171. _Thomas North._ "I find the character of this work pretty early
+delineated:
+
+
+    "'Twas Greek at first, that Greek was Latin made,
+    That Latin French, that French to English straid:
+    Thus 'twixt one Plutarch there's more difference,
+    Than i' th' same Englishman return'd from France." (Farmer).
+
+
+"_What a reply is this?_" Upton, _Critical Observations_, p. 249.
+
+"_Our author certainly wrote_," etc. Theobald, ed. 1733, vi., p. 178.
+
+172. _Epitaph on Timon._ "See Theobald's Preface to _K. Richard 2d._ 8vo.
+1720" (Farmer).
+
+_I cannot however omit_, etc. The following passage, down to "from Homer
+himself" (foot of p. 175) was added in the second edition.
+
+"_The speeches copy'd from Plutarch_," etc. See Pope's Preface, p. 53.
+
+_Should we be silent._ _Coriolanus_, v. 3. 94, etc.
+
+174. _The Sun's a thief._ _Timon of Athens_, iv. 3. 439, etc.
+
+_Dodd._ See the _Beauties of Shakespeare_, 1752, iii. 285, n. The remark
+was omitted in the edition of 1780.
+
+_"__our Author,__"__ says some one._ This quotation is from the criticism
+of Farmer's _Essay_ in the _Critical Review_ of January, 1767 (vol.
+xxiii., p. 50; cf. vol. xxi., p. 21).
+
+_Mynheer De Pauw._ See _Anacreontis Odae et Fragmenta, Graece et Latine
+... cum notis Joannis Cornelii de Pauw_, Utrecht, 1732.
+
+_two Latin translations._ "By Henry Stephens and Elias Andreas, Paris,
+1554, 4to, ten years before the birth of Shakespeare. The former version
+hath been ascribed without reason to John Dorat. Many other translators
+appeared before the end of the century: and particularly the Ode in
+question was made popular by Buchanan, whose pieces were soon to be met
+with in almost every modern language" (Farmer).
+
+_Puttenham._ _Arte of English Poesie_, iii., ch. xxii. (Arber, p. 259;
+_Elizabethan Critical Essays_, ed. Gregory Smith, ii., p. 171). The "some
+one of a reasonable good facilitie in translation" is John Southern, whose
+_Musyque of the Beautie of his Mistresse Diana_, containing translations
+from Ronsard, appeared in 1584.
+
+175. _Mrs. Lennox_, Charlotte Ramsay or Lennox (1720-1804), author of
+_Shakespear Illustrated: or the Novels and Histories on which the Plays of
+Shakespear are founded, collected and translated from the original
+Authors, with critical Remarks_, 3 vols., 1753, 54. She is better known by
+her _Female Quixote_, 1752.
+
+_the old story._ "It was originally _drawn into Englishe_ by Caxton under
+the name of the _Recuyel of the Historyes of Troye_, etc.... Wynken de
+Worde printed an edit. Fol. 1503, and there have been several subsequent
+ones" (Farmer).
+
+_sweet oblivious antidote._ Upton, p. 42, n.
+
+{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}. _Odyssey_, iv. 221.
+
+_Chapman's_ seven books of the _Iliad_ appeared in 1598. The translation
+of the _Iliad_ was completed in 1611 and that of the _Odyssey_ in 1614.
+
+_Barclay._ "Who list thistory of Patroclus to reade, etc. _Ship of
+Fooles_, 1570, p. 21" (Farmer).
+
+_Spenser._ Farmer quotes in a note from the _Faerie Queene_, iv. iii. 43.
+
+_Greek expressions._ Upton, p. 321.
+
+176. "_Lye in a water-bearer's house_," _Every Man in his Humour_, Act i.,
+Sc. 3.
+
+176. _Daniel the Historian_, _i.e._ Samuel Daniel the poet (1562-1619),
+whose _Collection of the Historie of England_ appeared in 1612 and 1617.
+Cf. p. 190.
+
+_Kuster._ See note on p. 108. "Aristophanis Comoediae undecim. Gr. and
+Lat. Amst. 1710. Fol., p. 596" (Farmer).
+
+_unyoke_ (_Hamlet_, v. 1. 59). See Upton, pp. 321, 322.
+
+_Orphan heirs_ (_Merry Wives_, v. 5. 43), _id._, p. 322. "Dr. Warburton
+corrects _orphan_ to _ouphen_; and not without plausibility, as the word
+_ouphes_ occurs both before and afterward. But I fancy, in acquiescence to
+the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the _Troop_,
+as Mortals by birth, but adopted by the Fairies: _Orphans_ with respect to
+their _real_ Parents, but now only dependant on _Destiny_ herself. A few
+lines from Spenser will sufficiently illustrate the passage" (Farmer).
+Farmer then quotes from the _Faerie Queene_, 111. iii. 26.
+
+177. _Heath._ "_Revisal_, pp. 75, 323, and 561" (Farmer).
+
+_Upton._ His edition of the _Faerie Queene_ appeared in 1758.
+
+_William Lilly_ (1602-1681), astrologer. "_History of his Life and Times_,
+p. 102, preserved by his dupe, Mr. Ashmole" (Farmer). _Elias Ashmole_
+(1617-1692), who bequeathed his museum and library to the University of
+Oxford.
+
+_Truepenny._ Upton, p. 26.
+
+178. _a legendary ballad._ The reference is to _King Lear_. But the ballad
+to _King Leire and his Three Daughters_ is of later date than the play.
+This error in Percy's _Reliques_ was for long repeated by editors and
+critics.
+
+_The Palace of Pleasure_, "beautified, adorned, and well furnished with
+pleasaunt Histories and excellent Nouelles, selected out of diuers good
+and commendable authors by William Painter, Clarke of the Ordinaunce and
+Armarie," appeared in two volumes in 1566-67; reprinted by Haslewood in
+1813 and by Mr. Joseph Jacobs in 1890.
+
+_English Plutarch._ See above.
+
+_Jacke Drum's Entertainment: or, the Comedie of Pasquill and Katherine_,
+4to, London, 1601; reprinted 1616 and 1618.
+
+178. _We are sent to Cinthio_, in Mrs. Lennox's _Shakespear Illustrated_,
+1753, vol. i., pp. 21-37.
+
+_Heptameron of Whetstone._ "Lond., 4to, 1582. She _reports_, in the fourth
+dayes exercise, the rare Historie of _Promos and Cassandra_. A marginal
+note informs us that Whetstone was the author of the _Commedie_ on that
+subject; which likewise might have fallen into the hands of Shakespeare"
+(Farmer).
+
+_Genevra of Turberville._ " 'The tale is a pretie comicall matter, and
+hath bin written in English verse some few years past, learnedly and with
+good grace, by M. George Turberuil.' Harrington's _Ariosto_, Fol. 1591, p.
+39" (Farmer).
+
+_Coke's Tale of Gamelyn._ Cf. Johnson's Preface, p. 133.
+
+_Love's Labour Wonne._ "See Meres's _Wits Treasury_, 1598, p. 282"
+(Farmer). Cf. the allusion to it in Tyrwhitt's _Observations and
+Conjectures_, 1766, p. 16. _Love's Labour Wonne_ has been identified also
+with the _Taming of the Shrew_, _Much Ado_, _Midsummer Night's Dream_, the
+_Tempest_, and _Love's Labour's Lost_.
+
+_Boccace._ "Our ancient poets are under greater obligation to Boccace than
+is generally imagined. Who would suspect that Chaucer hath borrowed from
+an Italian the facetious tale of the _Miller of Trumpington_?" etc.
+(Farmer).
+
+_Painter's Giletta of Narbon._ "In the first vol. of the _Palace of
+Pleasure_, 4to, 1566" (Farmer).
+
+_Langbaine._ _Account of the English Dramatick Poets_, 1691, p. 462.
+
+_Appolynus._ "_Confessio Amantis_, printed by T. Berthelet, Fol. 1532, p.
+175, etc." (Farmer). See G. C. Macaulay's edition of Gower, Oxford, 1901,
+iii. 396 (Bk. VIII., ll. 375, etc.).
+
+_Pericles._ On Farmer's suggestion, Malone included _Pericles_ in his
+edition of Shakespeare, and it has appeared in all subsequent editions
+except Keightley's. See _Cambridge Shakespeare_, vol. ix., p. ix.
+
+_Aulus Gellius_, _Noct. Attic._ iii. 3. 6.
+
+179. _Ben. Jonson._ "Ode on the _New Inn_," stanza 3.
+
+_The Yorkshire Tragedy._ " 'William Caluerley, of Caluerley in Yorkshire,
+Esquire, murdered two of his owne children in his owne house, then stabde
+his wife into the body with full intent to haue killed her, and then
+instantlie with like fury went from his house to haue slaine his yongest
+childe at nurse, but was preuented. Hee was prest to death in Yorke the 5
+of August, 1604.' _Edm. Howes' Continuation of John Stowe's Summarie_,
+8vo, 1607, p. 574. The story appeared before in a 4to pamphlet, 1605. It
+is omitted in the Folio chronicle, 1631" (Farmer).
+
+_the strictures of Scriblerus._ "These, however, he assures Mr. Hill, were
+the property of Dr. Arbuthnot" (Farmer). See Pope's _Works_, ed. Elwin &
+Courthope, x., p. 53.
+
+_This late example._ _Double Falshood_, ii. 4. 6-8.
+
+_You have an aspect. Id._, iv. 1. 46.
+
+_a preceding elision._ "Thus a line in Hamlet's description of the Player
+should be printed as in the old Folios:
+
+
+    "Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,"
+
+
+agreeably to the accent in a hundred other places" (Farmer).
+
+_This very accent_, etc. This passage, down to the end of the quotation
+from Thomson (top of p. 183), was added in the second edition.
+
+_Bentley._ Preface to his edition of _Paradise Lost_, 1732.
+
+180. _Manwaring_, Edward. See his treatise _Of Harmony and Numbers in
+Latin and English Prose, and in English Poetry_ (1744), p. 49.
+
+_Green._ May this "extraordinary gentleman" be George Smith Green, the
+Oxford watchmaker, author of a prose rendering of Milton's _Paradise
+Lost_, 1745; or Edward Burnaby Greene, author of _Poetical Essays_, 1772,
+and of translations from the classics? There is no copy of the "Specimen
+of a new Version of the _Paradise Lost_ into blank verse" in the Library
+of the British Museum, nor in any public collection which the present
+editor has consulted.
+
+_Dee_, John (1527-1608), astrologer.
+
+_Strike up, my masters. Double Falshood_, Act i., Sc. 3.
+
+181. _Victor_, Benjamin (died 1778), was made Poet Laureate of Ireland in
+1755. He produced in 1761, in two volumes, the _History of the Theatres of
+London and Dublin, from the year 1730 to the present time._ A third volume
+brought the history of the theatre down to 1771. Farmer refers to vol.
+ii., p. 107: "_Double Falshood_, a Tragedy, by Mr. _Theobald_, said by him
+to be written by _Shakespear_, which no one credited; and on Enquiry, the
+following Contradiction appeared; the Story of the _Double Falshood_ is
+taken from the _Spanish_ of _Cervantes_, who printed it in the year after
+_Shakespear_ died. This Play was performed twelve Nights."
+
+_Langbaine informs us._ _English Dramatick Poets_, p. 475.
+
+_Andromana._ "This play hath the letters J.S. in the title page, and was
+printed in the year 1660, but who was its author I have not been able to
+learn," Dodsley, _Collection of Old Plays_, 1744, vol. xi. p. 172. In the
+second edition (ed. Isaac Reed, 1780) the concluding words are replaced by
+a reference to the prologue written in 1671, which says that "'Twas
+Shirley's muse that labour'd for its birth." But there appears to be no
+further evidence that the play was by Shirley.
+
+_Hume._ See the account of Shakespeare in his _History_, reign of James
+I., _ad fin._, 1754: "He died in 1617, aged 53 years." The date of his
+death, but not his age, was corrected in the edition of 1770.
+
+_MacFlecknoe_, line 102.
+
+182. _Newton informs us_, in the note on _Paradise Lost_, iv. 556 (ed.
+1757, i., p. 202). See note on p. 110.
+
+182. _Her eye did seem to labour._ _The Brothers_, Act i., Sc. 1.
+"Middleton, in an obscure play, called _A Game at Chesse_, hath some very
+pleasing lines on a similar occasion:
+
+
+    Upon those lips, the sweete fresh buds of youth,
+    The holy dew of prayer lies like pearle,
+    Dropt from the opening eye-lids of the morne
+    Upon the bashfull Rose" (Farmer).
+
+
+_Lander_, William (died 1771), author of _An Essay on Milton's use and
+imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Lost_, 1750.
+
+_Richardson_, Jonathan (1665-1745), portrait painter, joint author with
+his son of _Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton's Paradise Lost_,
+1734. The quotation is taken from p. 338.
+
+183. _The stately sailing Swan._ Thomson, _Spring_, 778-782.
+
+_Gildon._ See Pope's Shakespeare, vol. vii., p. 358.
+
+_Master Prynne._ "Had our zealous Puritan been acquainted with the real
+crime of De Mehun, he would not have joined in the clamour against him.
+Poor Jehan, it seems, had raised the expectations of a monastery in
+France, by the legacy of a great chest, and the weighty contents of it;
+but it proved to be filled with nothing better than _vetches_. The friars,
+enraged at the ridicule and disappointment, would not suffer him to have
+Christian burial. See the Hon. Mr. Barrington's very learned and curious
+_Observations on the Statutes_, 4to, 1766, p. 24. From the _Annales
+d'Acquytayne, Paris_, 1537.--Our author had his full share in distressing
+the spirit of this restless man. 'Some Play-books are grown from _Quarto_
+into _Folio_; which yet bear so good a price and sale, that I cannot but
+with griefe relate it.--_Shackspeer's Plaies_ are printed in the best
+Crowne-paper, far better than most _Bibles_!' " (Farmer).
+
+_Whalley._ _Enquiry_, pp. 54-5; _Tempest_, iv. 1. 101; _Aeneid_, i. 46.
+Farmer added the following note in the second edition: "Others would give
+up this passage for the _Vera incessu patuit Dea_; but I am not able to
+see any improvement in the matter: even supposing the poet had been
+speaking of Juno, and no previous translation were extant." See the
+_Critical Review_, xxiii., p. 52.
+
+184. _John Taylor._ See notes, pp. 163 and 212.
+
+"_Most inestimable Magazine_," etc. From _A Whore_, Spenser Society
+Reprint of Folio of 1630, p. 272.
+
+_By two-headed Janus._ _Merchant of Venice_, i. 1. 50.
+
+_Like a Janus with a double-face_--_Taylor's Motto_, Spenser Soc. Reprint,
+p. 206.
+
+_Sewel._ Apparently a mistake for "Gildon," whose _Essay on the Stage_ is
+preceded immediately, in the edition of 1725, by Sewell's preface. "His
+motto to _Venus and Adonis_ is another proof," says Gildon, p. iv.
+
+_Taylor ... a whole Poem_,--_Taylor's Motto_, "Et habeo, et careo, et
+curo," Spenser Soc. Reprint, pp. 204, etc.
+
+_sweet Swan of Thames._ Pope, _Dunciad_, iii. 20:
+
+
+    Taylor, their better Charon, lends an oar
+    (Once Swan of Thames, tho' now he sings no more).
+
+
+_Dodd._ _Beauties of Shakespeare_, iii., p. 18 (ed. 1780).
+
+185. _Pastime of Pleasure._ "Cap. i., 4to, 1555" (Farmer).
+
+_Pageants._ "Amongst 'the things which Mayster More wrote in his youth for
+his pastime' prefixed to his _Workes_, 1557, Fol." (Farmer).
+
+_a very liberal Writer._ See Daniel Webb's _Remarks on the Beauties of
+Poetry_, 1762, pp. 120, 121.
+
+This passage, to "classical standard" (foot of p. 186), was added in the
+second edition.
+
+_See, what a grace._ _Hamlet_, iii. 4. 55.
+
+_the words of a better Critick._ Hurd, _Marks of Imitation_, 1757, p. 24.
+
+186. _Testament of Creseide._ "Printed amongst the works of Chaucer, but
+really written by _Robert Henderson_, or _Henryson_, according to other
+authorities" (Farmer). It was never _ascribed_ to Chaucer, not even in
+Thynne's edition.
+
+_Fairy Queen._ "It is observable that _Hyperion_ is used by Spenser with
+the same error in quantity" (Farmer).
+
+_Upton._ _Critical Observations_, pp. 230, 231. _Much Ado_, iii. 2. 11.
+
+_Theophilus Cibber_ (1703-1758), the actor, put his name on the title page
+of the _Lives of the Poets_ (five vols., 1753), which was mainly the work
+of Robert Shiels (died 1753); see Johnson's _Life of Hammond, ad init._,
+and Boswell, ed. Birkbeck Hill, iii. 29-31. For the reference to the
+_Arcadia_, see "Cibber's" _Lives_, i. 83.
+
+_Ames_, Joseph (1689-1759), author of _Typographical Antiquities_, 1749.
+
+187. _Lydgate._ Farmer has a long note here on the versification of
+Lydgate and Chaucer. "Let me here," he says, "make an observation for the
+benefit of the next editor of Chaucer. Mr. Urry, probably misled by his
+predecessor Speght, was determined, Procrustes-like, to force every line
+in the _Canterbury Tales_ to the same standard; but a precise number of
+syllables was not the object of our old poets," etc.
+
+_Hurd._ This quotation, which Farmer added in the second edition, is from
+Hurd's Notes to Horace's _Epistolae ad Pisones et Augustum_, 1757, vol.
+i., p. 214. Cf. also his _Discourse on Poetical Imitation_, pp. 125 and
+132, and the _Marks of Imitation_, p. 74. The passage in which the "one
+imitation is fastened on our Poet" occurs in the _Marks of Imitation_, pp.
+19, 20. Cf. note on p. 170.
+
+188. _Upton._ _Critical Observations_, p. 217.
+
+_Whalley._ _Enquiry_, pp. 55, 56.
+
+_Measure for Measure_, iii. 1. 118.
+
+_Platonick Hell of Virgil._ Farmer quotes in a note _Aeneid_, vi. 740-742.
+
+188. _an old Homily._ "At the ende of the _Festyuall_, drawen oute of
+_Legenda aurea_, 4to, 1508. It was first printed by Caxton, 1483, 'in
+helpe of such Clerkes who excuse theym for defaute of bokes, and also by
+symplenes of connynge' " (Farmer).
+
+_brenning heate._ "On all soules daye, p. 152" (Farmer).
+
+_Menage._ Cf. p. 109.
+
+_our Greek Professor._ Michael Lort (1725-1790), Regius Professor in
+Cambridge University from 1759 to 1771.
+
+_Blefkenius_,--Dithmar Blefken, who visited Iceland in 1563 and wrote the
+first account of the island. "_Islandiae Descript._ Lugd. Bat. 1607, p.
+46" (Farmer).
+
+_After all, Shakespeare's curiosity_, etc.... _original Gothic_ (top of p.
+190), added in second edition.
+
+_Douglas._ Farmer has used the 1710 Folio of Gavin Douglas's _Aeneid_.
+
+189. _Till the foul crimes._ _Hamlet_, i. 5. 12.
+
+"_Shakespeare himself in the Tempest._" Quoted from the _Critical Review_,
+xxiii., p. 50; cf. also xix., p. 165.
+
+_Most sure, the Goddess._ _Tempest_, i. 2. 421.
+
+_Epitaphed, the inventor of the English hexameter._ Gabriel Harvey's _Four
+Letters_ (Third Letter). See _Elizabethan Critical Essays_, ed. Gregory
+Smith, ii. 230.
+
+_halting on Roman feet._ Pope, _Epistle to Augustus_, 98: "And Sidney's
+verse halts ill on Roman feet."
+
+_Hall._ Satire i. 6.
+
+190. Daniel's _Defence of Rhyme_, in answer to Campion's _Observations on
+the Art of English Poesie_, appeared in 1602.
+
+_in his eye._ Cf. Theobald, Preface to _Richard II._, p. 5, and Whalley,
+_Enquiry_, p. 54.
+
+_Ye elves of hills._ _Tempest_, v. 1. 33.
+
+_Holt._ "In some remarks on the _Tempest_, published under the quaint
+title of _An Attempte to rescue that aunciente English Poet and
+Play-wrighte, Maister Williaume Shakespeare, from the many Errours
+faulsely charged upon him by certaine new-fangled Wittes_. Lond. 8vo,
+1749, p. 81" (Farmer). On the title page Holt signs himself "a gentleman
+formerly of Gray's Inn." He issued proposals in 1750 for an edition of
+Shakespeare. Cf. p. 206.
+
+_Auraeque_, etc. Ovid, _Met._ vii. 197-8.
+
+_Golding._ "His work is dedicated to the Earl of Leicester in a long
+epistle in verse, from Berwicke, April 20, 1567" (Farmer). The translation
+of the first four books had appeared in 1565.
+
+_Some love not a gaping Pig._ _Merchant of Venice_, iv. 1. 47.
+
+191. _Peter le Loier._ "M. Bayle hath delineated the singular character of
+our _fantastical_ author. His work was originally translated by one
+Zacharie Jones. My edit. is in 4to, 1605, with an anonymous Dedication to
+the King: the Devonshire story was therefore well known in the time of
+Shakespeare.--The passage from Scaliger is likewise to be met with in _The
+Optick Glasse of Humors_, written, I believe, by T. Wombwell; and in
+several other places" (Farmer). Reed quotes a manuscript note by Farmer on
+the statement that it was written by Wombwell: "So I imagined from a note
+of Mr. Baker's, but I have since seen a copy in the library of Canterbury
+Cathedral, printed 1607, and ascribed to T. Walkington of St. John's,
+Cambridge."
+
+_He was a man_, etc. _Henry VIII._, iv. 2. 33.
+
+192. _Holingshed._ Farmer's quotations from Holinshed are not _literatim_.
+
+_Indisputably the passage_, etc. (to the end of the quotation from
+Skelton),--added in the second edition.
+
+Hall's _Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and
+Yorke_ (1548) was freely used by Holinshed, but there is a passage in
+_Henry VIII._ which shows that the dramatist knew Hall's chronicle at
+first hand.
+
+193. _Skelton._ "His Poems are printed with the title of _Pithy,
+Pleasaunt, and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate_,"
+etc. Farmer then explains with his usual learning Skelton's title of "poet
+laureate."
+
+_Upton._ _Critical Observations_, p. 47, n.
+
+_Pierce Plowman._ This reference was added in the second edition. On the
+other hand, the following reference, which was given in the first edition
+after the quotation from _Hieronymo_, was omitted: "And in Dekker's
+_Satiro-Mastix, or the Untrussing of the humourous Poet_, Sir Rees ap
+Vaughan swears in the same manner."
+
+_Hieronymo_, ii. 2. 87, 91-93 (_Works of Thomas Kyd_, ed. Boas, p. 24).
+
+_Garrick._ "Mr. Johnson's edit., vol. viii., p. 171" (Farmer). The
+following three pages, from "_a Gentleman_" (foot of p. 193) to the end of
+the Latin quotation at the top of p. 197, were added in the second
+edition.
+
+194. _Upton._ _Critical Observations_, p. 300.
+
+_This villain here._ _2 Henry VI._, iv. 1. 106.
+
+Grimald's "Three Bookes of Duties, tourned out of Latin into English"
+appeared in 1555. "I have met with a writer who tells us that a
+translation of the _Offices_ was printed by Caxton in the year 1481: but
+such a book never existed. It is a mistake for _Tullius of Old Age_,
+printed with the _Boke of Frendshipe_, by John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester.
+I believe the former was translated by William Wyrcestre, _alias_ Botoner"
+(Farmer).
+
+_There is no bar._ _Henry V._, i. 2. 35.
+
+195. _It hath lately been repeated_, etc. In the _Critical Review_,
+xxiii., p. 50; cf. p. xxi, p. 21.
+
+_Guthrie_, William (1708-1770), whose reports to the _Gentleman's
+Magazine_ were revised by Johnson. He wrote histories of _England_ (4
+vols., 1744, etc.), the _World_ (12 vols., 1764, etc.), and _Scotland_ (10
+vols., 1767). His _Essay upon English Tragedy_ had appeared in 1747. See
+note, p. 101.
+
+196. _All hail, Macbeth._ 1. iii. 48-50.
+
+_Macbeth._ The probable date of _Macbeth_ is 1606.
+
+_Wake_, Sir Isaac (1580-1632). The _Rex Platonicus_, celebrating the visit
+of James I. to Oxford in 1605, appeared in 1607.
+
+197. _Grey._ _Notes on Shakespeare_, p. vii.; cf. vol. ii., p. 289, etc.
+
+_Whalley._ _Enquiry_, p. v.
+
+_a very curious and intelligent gentleman._ Capell: see below.
+
+_It hath indeed been said_, etc. In the _Critical Review_, xxiii., p. 50.
+Accordingly the following passage (to "Mr. Lort," foot of p. 199) was
+added in the second edition.
+
+_Saxo Grammaticus._ " 'Falsitatis enim (Hamlethus) alienus haberi cupidus,
+ita astutiam veriloquio permiscebat, ut nec dictis veracitas deesset, nec
+acuminis modus verorum judicio proderetur.' This is quoted, as it had been
+before, in Mr. Guthrie's _Essay on Tragedy_, with a _small_ variation from
+the _Original_. See edit. fol. 1644, p. 50" (Farmer). The quotation was
+given in the _Critical Review_, xxiii., p. 50.
+
+198. _The Hystorie of Hamblet._ It is now known that Shakespeare's
+"original" was the early play of _Hamlet_, which was probably written by
+Thomas Kyd, towards the end of 1587. See _Works of Kyd_, ed. Boas,
+Introduction, iv.
+
+Though Farmer disproves Shakespeare's use of _Saxo Grammaticus_, he errs
+in the importance he gives to the _Hystorie of Hamblet_. No English
+"translation from the French of Belleforest" appears to have been issued
+before 1608.
+
+_Duke of Newcastle_, Thomas Pelham-Holles (1693-1768), first Lord of the
+Treasury, 1754, Lord Privy Seal, 1765-66, Chancellor of Cambridge
+University from 1748.
+
+199. _Painter._ See above, p. 178.
+
+_Tom Rawlinson_ (1681-1725), satirised as "Tom Folio" by Addison in the
+_Tatler_, No. 158.
+
+_Colman_, George, the elder (1732-1794), brought out the _Comedies of
+Terence translated into familiar blank verse_ in 1765. He replied to
+Farmer's _Essay_, the merit of which he admitted, in the appendix to a
+later edition. Farmer's answer is given in the letter which Steevens
+printed as an appendix to his edition of Johnson's Shakespeare, 1773,
+viii., App. ii., note on _Love's Labour's Lost_, iv. 2. In a long footnote
+in the _Essay_, Farmer replies also to an argument advanced by Bonnell
+Thornton (1724-1768), Colman's associate in the _Connoisseur_, in his
+translation of the _Trinummus_, 1767.
+
+200. _Redime te captum._ _Eunuchus_, i. 1. 29; _Taming of the Shrew_, i.
+1. 167.
+
+_translation of the Menaechmi._ "It was published in 4to, 1595. The
+printer of Langbaine, p. 524, hath accidentally given the date 1515, which
+hath been copied implicitly by Gildon, Theobald, Cooke, and several
+others. Warner is now almost forgotten, yet the old criticks esteemed him
+one of 'our chiefe heroical _makers_.' Meres informs us that he had 'heard
+him termed of the best wits of both our Universities, our _English
+Homer_' " (Farmer). See note on p. 9.
+
+_Riccoboni_, Luigi (1674-1753). See his _Réflexions historiques sur les
+differens théatres de l'Europe_, 1738, English translation, 1741, p. 163:
+"If really that good comedy Plautus was the first that appeared, we must
+yield to the English the merit of having opened their stage with a good
+prophane piece, whilst the other nations in Europe began theirs with the
+most wretched farces."
+
+_Hanssach_, Hans Sachs (1494-1576).
+
+201. _Gascoigne._ "His works were first collected under the singular title
+of 'A hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde up in one small Poesie. Gathered
+partly (by translation) in the fyne outlandish Gardins of _Euripides_,
+_Ouid_, _Petrarke_, _Ariosto_, and others: and partly by inuention, out of
+our owne fruitefull Orchardes in Englande: yelding sundrie sweete sauours
+of tragical, comical, and morall discourses, bothe pleasaunt and
+profitable to the well smellyng noses of learned Readers.' _Black letter_,
+4to, no date" (Farmer).
+
+"_Our authour had this line from Lilly._" Johnson, edition of 1765, vol.
+iii., p. 20.
+
+_an unprovoked antagonist._ "W. Kenrick's Review of Dr. Johnson's edit. of
+Shakespeare, 1765, 8vo, p. 105" (Farmer).
+
+_We have hitherto supposed._ The next three paragraphs were added in the
+second edition.
+
+202. _Gosson._ See Arber's reprint, p. 40.
+
+_Hearne_, Thomas (1678-1735) edited William of Worcester's _Annales Rerum
+Anglicarum_ in 1728. "I know indeed there is extant a very old poem, in
+_black letter_, to which it might have been supposed Sir John Harrington
+alluded, had he not spoken of the discovery as a _new_ one, and
+recommended it as worthy the notice of his countrymen: I am persuaded the
+method in the old bard will not be thought _either_. At the end of the
+sixth volume of Leland's _Itinerary_, we are _favoured_ by Mr. Hearne with
+a Macaronic poem on a battle at Oxford between the scholars and the
+townsmen: on a line of which, 'Invadunt aulas _bycheson cum forth_
+geminantes,' our commentator very wisely and gravely remarks: '_Bycheson_,
+id est, _son_ of a _byche_, ut e codice Rawlinsoniano edidi. Eo nempe modo
+quo et olim _whorson_ dixerunt pro _son of a whore_. Exempla habemus cum
+alibi tum in libello quodam lepido & antiquo (inter codices Seldenianos in
+Bibl. Bodl.) qui inscribitur: _The Wife lapped in Morel's Skin: or the
+Taming of a Shrew_' " (Farmer). Farmer then gives Hearne's quotation of
+two verses from it, pp. 36 and 42.
+
+202. _Pope's list._ At the end of vol. vi. of his edition.
+
+_Ravenscroft_, Edward, in his _Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia_,
+1687, "To the Reader"; see Ingleby's _Centurie of Prayse_, p. 404.
+
+203. _The Epistles, says one, of Paris and Helen._ Sewell, Preface to
+Pope's Shakespeare, vol. vii., 1725, p. 10.
+
+_It may be concluded, says another._ Whalley, _Enquiry_, p. 79.
+
+_Jaggard._ "It may seem little matter of wonder that the name of
+Shakespeare should be borrowed for the benefit of the bookseller; and by
+the way, as probably for a _play_ as a _poem_: but modern criticks may be
+surprised perhaps at the complaint of John Hall, that 'certayne chapters
+of the _Proverbes_, translated by him into English metre, 1550, had before
+been untruely _entituled_ to be the doyngs of Mayster Thomas Sternhold' "
+(Farmer).
+
+204. _Biographica Britannica_, 1763, vol. vi. Farmer has a note at this
+passage correcting a remark in the life of Spenser and showing by a
+quotation from Browne's _Britannia's Pastorals_, that the _Faerie Queene_
+was left unfinished,--not that part of it had been lost.
+
+205. _Anthony Wood._ "_Fasti_, 2d. Edit., v. 1. 208.--It will be seen on
+turning to the former edition, that the latter part of the paragraph
+belongs to another _Stafford_. I have since observed that Wood is not the
+first who hath given us the true author of the pamphlet" (Fanner).
+_Fasti_, ed. Bliss, i. 378. But Stafford's authorship of this pamphlet has
+now been disproved: see the _English Historical Review_, vi. 284-305.
+
+_Warton_, Thomas. _Life of Ralph Bathurst_, 2 vols., 1761.
+
+_Aubrey._ See _Brief Lives_, ed. Andrew Clark, 1898, vol. ii., pp.
+225-227. For _Beeston_, see vol. i., pp. 96-7.
+
+_Crendon._ "It was observed in the former edition that this place is not
+met with in Spelman's _Villare_, or in Adams's _Index_; nor, it might have
+been added, in the _first_ and the _last_ performance of this sort,
+Speed's _Tables_ and Whatley's _Gazetteer_: perhaps, however, it may be
+meant under the name of _Crandon_; but the inquiry is of no importance. It
+should, I think, be written _Credendon_; tho' better antiquaries than
+Aubrey have acquiesced in the vulgar corruption" (Farmer). But _Crendon_
+is only a misprint for _Grendon_.
+
+206. _Rowe tells us._ See p. 4.
+
+_Hamlet revenge._ Steevens and Malone "confirm" Farmer's observation by
+references to Dekker's _Satiromastix_, 1602, and an anonymous play called
+_A Warning for Faire Women_, 1599. Farmer is again out in his chronology.
+
+_Holt._ See above, p. 190. Johnson's edition of Shakespeare, vol. viii.,
+Appendix, note on viii. 194.
+
+_Kirkman_, Francis, bookseller, published his _Exact Catalogue of all the
+English Stage Plays_ in 1671.
+
+_Winstanley_, William (1628-1698), compiler of _Lives of the most famous
+English Poets_, 1687. "These people, who were the Curls of the last age,
+ascribe likewise to our author those miserable performances _Mucidorous_
+and the _Merry Devil of Edmonton_" (Farmer).
+
+_seven years afterward._ "Mr. Pope asserts 'The troublesome Raigne of
+_King John_,' in two parts, 1611, to have been written by Shakespeare and
+Rowley: which edition is a mere copy of another in black letter, 1591. But
+I find his assertion is somewhat to be doubted: for the old edition hath
+no name of _author_ at all; and that of 1611, the initials only, _W. Sh._,
+in the title-page" (Farmer).
+
+_Nash._ This reference was added in the second edition. See Arber's
+reprint of Greene's _Menaphon_, p. 17, or Gregory Smith, _Elizabethan
+Critical Essays_, i. 307, etc.
+
+"Peele seems to have been taken into the patronage of the Earl of
+Northumberland about 1593, to whom he dedicates in that year, '_The Honour
+of the Garter_, a poem gratulatorie--the _firstling_ consecrated to his
+noble name.'--'He was esteemed,' says Anthony Wood, 'a most noted poet,
+1579; but when or where he died, I cannot tell, for _so it is_, and always
+_always hath been_, that most Poets die _poor_, and consequently
+obscurely, and a hard matter it is to trace them to their graves.
+_Claruit_, 1599.' _Ath. Oxon._, vol. i., p. 300.--We had lately in a
+periodical pamphlet, called _The Theatrical Review_, a very _curious_
+letter, under the name of George Peele, to one Master Henrie Marle,
+relative to a dispute between Shakespeare and Alleyn, which was
+compromised by Ben. Jonson.--'I never longed for thy companye more than
+last night; we were all verie merrie at the Globe, when Ned Alleyn did not
+scruple to affyrme pleasauntly to thy friende Will, that he had stolen hys
+speeche about the excellencie of acting in _Hamlet_ hys tragedye, from
+conversaytions manifold, whych had passed between them, and opinions gyven
+by Alleyn touchyng that subjecte. Shakespeare did not take this talk in
+good sorte; but Jonson did put an end to the stryfe wyth wittielie saying,
+thys affaire needeth no contentione; you stole it from Ned no doubte: do
+not marvel: haue you not seene hym acte tymes out of number?'--This is
+pretended to be printed from the original MS. dated 1600; which agrees
+well enough with Wood's _Claruit_: but unluckily Peele was dead at least
+two years before. 'As Anacreon died by the _pot_,' says Meres, 'so George
+Peele by the _pox_,' _Wit's Treasury_, 1598, p. 286" (Farmer).
+
+_Constable in Midsummer Night's Dream._ Apparently a mistake for _Much
+Ado_.
+
+207. _two children._ Susannah, Judith, and Hamnet were all born at
+Stratford. Judith and Hamnet were twins. Cf. p. 21 and note.
+
+"_cheers up himself with ends of verse._" Butler, _Hudibras_, i. 3. 1011.
+
+_Wits, Fits, and Fancies._ "By one Anthony Copley, 4to, black letter; it
+seems to have had many editions: perhaps the last was in 1614.--The first
+piece of this sort that I have met with was printed by T. Berthelet, tho'
+not mentioned by Ames, called 'Tales, and quicke answeres very mery and
+pleasant to rede.' 4to, no date." (Farmer).
+
+208. _Master Page, sit._ _2 Henry IV._, v. 3. 30.
+
+_Heywood._ In the "To the Reader" prefixed to his _Sixt Hundred of
+Epigrammes_ (Spenser Society reprint, 1867, p. 198).
+
+_Dekker._ Vol. iii., p. 281 (ed. 1873).
+
+_Water-poet._ See the Spenser Society reprint of the folio of 1630, p.
+545.
+
+_Rivo, says the Drunkard._ _1 Henry IV._, ii. 4. 124.
+
+209. _What you will._ Act ii., Sc. 1 (vol. i., p. 224, ed. 1856).
+
+_Love's Labour Lost_, iv. 1. 100. This paragraph was added in the second
+edition.
+
+_Taming of the Shrew_, ii. 1. 73.
+
+_Heath._ _Revisal of Shakespear's Text_, p. 159. This quotation was added
+in the second edition.
+
+_Heywood._ _Epigrammes upon prouerbes_, 194 (Spenser Soc. reprint, p.
+158).
+
+210. _Howell_, James (1594-1666), Historiographer, author of the
+_Epistolae Ho-Elianae._ _Proverbs or old sayed Saws and Adages in English
+or the Saxon Tongue_ formed an appendix to his _Lexicon Tetraglotton_
+(1659-60). The allusion to Howell was added in the second edition.
+
+_Philpot_, John (1589-1645). See Camden's _Remains concerning Britain_,
+1674, "Much amended, with many rare Antiquities never before Imprinted, by
+the industry and care of John Philipot, Somerset Herald, and W. D. Gent":
+1870 reprint, p. 319.
+
+_Grey._ _Notes on Shakespeare_, ii., p. 249.
+
+_Romeo._ "It is remarked that 'Paris, tho' in one place called _Earl_, is
+most commonly stiled the _Countie_ in this play. Shakespeare seems to have
+preferred, for some reason or other, the Italian _Conte_ to our
+_Count_:--perhaps he took it from the old English novel, from which he is
+said to have taken his plot.'--He certainly did so: Paris is there first
+stiled _a young Earle_, and afterward _Counte_, _Countee_, and _County_,
+according to the unsettled orthography of the time. The word, however, is
+frequently met with in other writers, particularly in Fairfax," etc.
+(Farmer).
+
+_Painter_, vol. ii. 1567, 25th novel. Arthur Broke's verse rendering,
+founded on Boaistuau's (or Boisteau's) French version of Bandello,
+appeared in 1562; and it was to Broke, rather than to Painter, that
+Shakespeare was indebted. See P. A. Daniel's _Originals and Analogues_,
+Part I. (New Shakspere Society, 1875).
+
+_Taming of the Shrew._ Induction, i. 5.
+
+_Hieronymo_, iii. 14, 117, 118 (ed. Boas, p. 78); cf. p. 193.
+
+_Whalley._ _Enquiry._ p. 48.
+
+_Philips_,--Edward Phillips (1630-1696), Milton's nephew. See his _Theatrum
+Poetarum, or a Compleat Collection of the Poets_, 1675, ii. p. 195. Cf.
+also Winstanley's _English Poets_, p. 218.
+
+_Heywood_, in the _Apology for Actors_, 1612, alluded to above; see
+Hawkins's _Origin of the English Drama_, 1773, ii., p. 3, and Boas's
+_Works of Kyd_, 1901, pp. xiii, civ, and 411. Mr. Boas gives Hawkins the
+credit of discovering the authorship of _The Spanish Tragedy_ "some time
+before 1773," but the credit is Farmer's. Hawkins was undoubtedly indebted
+to Farmer's _Essay_.
+
+211. _Henry the fifth_, Act iii., Sc. 4.
+
+_not published by the author._ "Every writer on Shakespeare hath expressed
+his astonishment that his author was not solicitous to secure his fame by
+a correct edition of his performances. This matter is not understood. When
+a poet was connected with a particular playhouse, he constantly sold his
+works to the _Company_, and it was their interest to keep them from a
+number of rivals. A favourite piece, as Heywood informs us, only got into
+print when it was copied _by the ear_, 'for a double sale would bring on a
+suspicion of honestie.' Shakespeare therefore himself published nothing in
+the drama: when he left the stage, his copies remained with his
+fellow-managers, Heminge and Condell; who at their own retirement, about
+seven years after the death of their author, gave the world the edition
+now known by the name of the _first Folio_, and call the previous
+publications 'stolne and surreptitious, maimed and deformed by the frauds
+and stealths of injurious impostors.' But _this_ was printed from the
+playhouse copies; which in a series of years had been frequently altered,
+thro' convenience, caprice, or ignorance. We have a sufficient instance of
+the liberties taken by the actors, in an old pamphlet by Nash, called
+_Lenten Stuff, with the Prayse of the red Herring_, 4to, 1599, where he
+assures us that in a play of his, called the _Isle of Dogs_, '_foure
+acts_, without his consent, or the least guesse of his drift or scope,
+were supplied by the players.'--This, however, was not his first quarrel
+with them. In the Epistle prefixed to Greene's _Arcadia_, which I have
+quoted before, Tom hath a lash at some 'vaine glorious tragedians,' and
+very plainly at Shakespeare in particular; which will serve for an answer
+to an observation of Mr. Pope, that had almost been forgotten: 'It was
+thought a praise to Shakespeare that he scarce ever blotted a line. I
+believe the common opinion of his want of learning proceeded from no
+better ground. This, too, might be thought a praise by some.' But hear
+Nash, who was far from _praising_: 'I leaue all these to the mercy of
+their _mother-tongue_, that feed on nought but the crums that fall from
+the _translator's_ trencher,--that could scarcely _Latinize_ their neck
+verse if they should haue neede; yet _English Seneca_, read by
+candle-light, yeelds many good sentences--hee will affoord you whole
+_Hamlets_, I should say, _handfuls_ of tragicall speeches.' I cannot
+determine exactly when this _Epistle_ was first published; but, I fancy,
+it will carry the original _Hamlet_ somewhat further back than we have
+hitherto done; and it may be observed that the oldest copy now extant is
+said to be 'enlarged to almost as much againe as it was.' Gabriel Harvey
+printed at the end of the year 1592 _Foure Letters and certaine Sonnetts,
+especially touching Robert Greene_: in one of which his _Arcadia_ is
+mentioned. Now Nash's Epistle must have been previous to these, as Gabriel
+is quoted in it with applause; and the _Foure Letters_ were the beginning
+of a quarrel. Nash replied in _Strange Newes of the intercepting certaine
+Letters, and a Convoy of Verses, as they were going_ privilie _to victual
+the Low Countries_, 1593. Harvey rejoined the same year in _Pierce's
+Supererogation, or a new Praise of the old Asse_; and Nash again, in _Have
+with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up; containing a
+full Answer to the eldest Sonne of the Halter-maker_, 1596.--Dr. Lodge
+calls Nash our _true English Aretine_: and John Taylor, in his
+_Kicksey-Winsey, or a Lerry Come-twang_, even makes an oath 'by sweet
+satyricke Nash his urne.'--He died before 1606, as appears from an old
+comedy called _The Return from Parnassus_" (Farmer). See Gregory Smith,
+_Elizabethan Critical Essays_, especially i. 424-5.
+
+211. _Hawkins._ Johnson's Shakespeare, vol. viii., Appendix, note on iv.,
+p. 454. The quotation from Johnson, and the references to Eliot and Du
+Bartas, were added in the second edition.
+
+_Est-il impossible._ _Henry V._, iv. 4. 17.
+
+_French Alphabet of De la Mothe._ "Lond., 1592, 8vo." (Farmer).
+
+_Orthoepia of John Eliot._ "Lond., 1593, 4to. Eliot is almost the only
+_witty_ grammarian that I have had the fortune to meet with. In his
+Epistle prefatory to the _Gentle Doctors of Gaule_, he cries out for
+persecution, very like Jack in that most poignant of all Satires, the
+_Tale of a Tub_, 'I pray you be readie quicklie to cauill at my booke, I
+beseech you heartily calumniate my doings with speede, I request you
+humbly controll my method as soone as you may, I earnestly entreat you
+hisse at my inventions,' " etc. (Farmer).
+
+_Sejanus._ See Jonson's "To the Readers": "Lastly, I would inform you that
+this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on
+the public stage; wherein a second pen had good share: in place of which,
+I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing, of mine
+own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed
+usurpation." Jonson is supposed to refer here to Shakespeare.
+
+_But what if ... Capell's Prolusions_, added in the second edition.
+
+_Pierce Penilesse_, ed. J. P. Collier (Shakespeare Society, 1842), p. 60.
+
+212. _Tarlton_, Richard (d. 1588),--_Jests, drawn into three parts_, ed.
+Halliwell (Shakespeare Society, 1844), pp. 24, 25: _Old English Jest
+Books_, ed. W. C. Hazlitt (1864), pp. 218, 219.
+
+_Capell._ Cf. pp. 197 and 198. He describes _Edward III._ on the title
+page of his _Prolusions or Select Pieces of Antient Poetry_, 1760, as
+"thought to be writ by Shakespeare."
+
+_Laneham_, Robert, who appears in Scott's _Kenilworth_. The letter has
+been reprinted by the Ballad Society (1871), and the New Shakspere Society
+(1890). Referring to the spelling of the name, Farmer says in a note, "It
+is indeed of no importance, but I suspect the former to be right, as I
+find it corrupted afterward to _Lanam_ and _Lanum_."
+
+_Meres._ "This author by a pleasant mistake in some sensible _Conjectures
+on Shakespeare_, lately printed at Oxford, is quoted by the name of
+_Maister_. Perhaps the title-page was imperfect; it runs thus: 'Palladis
+Tamia. Wits Treasury. Being the second part of Wits Commonwealth, By
+_Francis Meres Maister_ of Artes of both Universities.' I am glad out of
+gratitude to this man, who hath been of frequent service to me, that I am
+enabled to perfect Wood's account of him; from the assistance of our
+_Master's_ very accurate list of graduates (which it would do honour to
+the university to print at the publick expense) and the kind information
+of a friend from the register of his parish:--He was originally of
+Pembroke-Hall, B.A. in 1587, and M.A. 1591. About 1602 he became rector of
+Wing in Rutland; and died there, 1646, in the 81st year of his age"
+(Farmer). See Ingleby's _Shakspere Allusion-Books_ or Gregory Smith's
+_Elizabethan Critical Essays_. The reference at the beginning of Farmer's
+note is to Tyrwhitt's _Observations and Conjectures upon some passages of
+Shakespeare_, 1766.
+
+_the Giant of Rabelais._ See _As You Like It_, iii. 2. 238, and _King
+Lear_, iii. 6. 7, 8.
+
+_John Taylor._ See note, p. 163. "I have quoted many pieces of John
+Taylor, but it was impossible to give their original dates. He may be
+traced as an author for more than half a century. His works were collected
+in folio, 1630, but many were printed afterward," etc. (Farmer). The
+reference to Gargantua will be found on p. 160 of the Spenser Society
+Reprint of the Folio. Taylor refers to Rabelais also in his _Dogge of
+Warre_, _id._, p. 364.
+
+213. _Richard the third._ "Some inquiry hath been made for the first
+performers of the capital characters in Shakespeare. We learn that
+Burbage, the _alter Roscius_ of Camden, was the original Richard, from a
+passage in the poems of Bishop Corbet; who introduces his host at Bosworth
+describing the battle:
+
+
+    "But when he would have said King Richard died,
+    And call'd _a horse_, _a horse_, he _Burbage_ cried."
+
+
+The play on this subject mentioned by Sir John Harrington in his _Apologie
+for Poetrie_, 1591, and sometimes mistaken for Shakespeare's, was a Latin
+one, written by Dr. Legge, and acted at St. John's in our University, some
+years before 1588, the date of the copy in the Museum. This appears from a
+better MS. in our library at Emmanuel, with the names of the original
+performers.
+
+It is evident from a passage in Camden's _Annals_ that there was an old
+play likewise on the subject of _Richard the Second_; but I know not in
+what language. Sir Gelley Merrick, who was concerned in the hare-brained
+business of the Earl of Essex, and was hanged for it with the ingenious
+Cuffe in 1601, is accused, amongst other things, "quod _exoletam_
+Tragoediam de tragica abdicatione Regis Ricardi Secundi in publico theatro
+coram conjuratis data pecunia agi curasset" (Farmer).
+
+213. _Remember whom ye are_, etc. _Richard III._, v. 3. 315.
+
+_Holingshed._ "I cannot take my leave of Holingshed without clearing up a
+difficulty which hath puzzled his biographers. Nicholson and others have
+_supposed_ him a _clergyman_. Tanner goes further and tells us that he was
+educated at Cambridge and actually took the degree of M.A. in 1544.--Yet it
+appears by his will, printed by Hearne, that at the end of life he was
+only a _steward_, or a _servant_ in some capacity or other, to Thomas
+Burdett, Esq. of Bromcote, in Warwickshire.--These things Dr. Campbell
+could not reconcile. The truth is we have no claim to the education of the
+_Chronicler_: the M.A. in 1544 was not _Raphael_, but one _Ottiwell
+Holingshed_, who was afterward named by the founder one of the first
+Fellows of Trinity College" (Farmer).
+
+214. _Hig, hag, hog._ _Merry Wives_, iv. 1. 44.
+
+_writers of the time._ "Ascham, in the Epistle prefixed to his
+_Toxophilus_, 1571, observes of them that 'Manye Englishe writers, usinge
+straunge wordes, as _Lattine_, _Frenche_, and _Italian_, do make all
+thinges darke and harde,' " etc. (Farmer).
+
+_all such reading as was never read._ _Dunciad_, i., line 156, first
+edition (see Introduction, p. xliv.; iv., line 250, edition of 1742).
+
+_Natale solum._ "This alludes to an intended publication of the
+_Antiquities of the Town of Leicester_. The work was just begun at the
+press, when the writer was called to the principal tuition of a large
+college, and was obliged to decline the undertaking. The plates, however,
+and some of the materials have been long ago put into the hands of a
+gentleman who is every way qualified to make a proper use of them"
+(Farmer). This gentleman was John Nichols, the printer, whose _History and
+Antiquities of the County of Leicester_ appeared from 1795 to 1815.
+
+215. _primrose path._ _Hamlet_, i. 3. 50; cf. _Macbeth_, ii. 3. 21.
+
+_Age cannot wither._ _Antony and Cleopatra_, ii. 2. 240.
+
+
+
+
+Maurice Morgann.
+
+
+221. _Candide_, chapters 9 and 15.
+
+225. _general criticism is uninstructive._ Cf. Joseph Warton,
+_Adventurer_, No. 116: "General criticism is on all subjects useless and
+unentertaining; but it is more than commonly absurd with respect to
+Shakespeare, who must be accompanied step by step, and scene by scene, in
+his gradual developments of characters and passions," etc.
+
+239. line 28. _which._ The original has _who._
+
+241. _Oldcastle._ See Rowe, p. 5, and note.
+
+247. note. _Be thus when thou art dead._ _Othello_, v. 2. 18.
+
+248. _Barbarian._ See notes on Voltaire, pp. 117, etc.
+
+_Love's Labour lost._ In his edition of _L.L.L._ (1768), Capell omitted
+fifteen lines from Biron's speech in Act iv., Sc. 3 (iv. 1 in his own
+edition, p. 54). He did not record the omission.
+
+249. _Nothing perishable about him except that very learning_, etc. Cf.
+Edward Young, _Conjectures on Original Composition_, 1759, p. 81, and
+Hurd, Notes on Horace's _Art of Poetry_, line 286 (1757, i., pp. 213, 4):
+"Our Shakespear was, I think, the first that broke through this bondage of
+classical superstition. And he owed this felicity, as he did some others,
+to his want of what is called the advantage of a learned education."
+
+251. _Macbeth_, i. 5. 18, 49; v. 5. 13; v. 3. 23.
+
+_practicer of arts inhibited._ _Othello_, i. 2. 78.
+
+254. note. _Shakespeare's magic_, etc. Dryden, Prologue to the _Tempest_,
+1667, lines 19, 20.
+
+258. _miching malicho._ _Hamlet_, iii. 2. 147.
+
+260. _but a choleric word._ _Measure for Measure_, ii. 2. 130.
+
+262. _Cadogan_, William (1711-1797), a fashionable London doctor, who
+published in 1771 a _Dissertation on the Gout and on all Chronic
+Diseases_, in which he held that gout is "a disease of our own acquiring"
+and "the necessary effect of intemperance."
+
+267, note. _For if the Jew._ _Merchant of Venice_, iv. 1. 280.
+
+269. _Souls made of fire and children of the sun._ Edward Young, _The
+Revenge_, v. 2.
+
+270. _just where youth ends._ Cf. _Paradise Lost_, xi. 245, 246.
+
+270. _Old, cold, and of intolerable entrails._ _Merry Wives_, v. 5. 161.
+
+_Mrs. Montague._ Two chapters in Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu's _Essay on the
+Writings and Genius of Shakespear_ (1769) deal with the first and second
+parts of _Henry IV._ She speaks of "the cowardly and braggart temper of
+Falstaffe" (p. 103), and says that "gluttony, corpulency, and cowardice
+are the peculiarities of Falstaffe's composition" (p. 107).
+
+271. _golden fool._ _Timon of Athens_, iv. 3. 18.
+
+277. _Players ... the worst judges of Shakespeare._ Cf. Pope, Preface, p.
+51.
+
+285. line 27. _attacked._ The original has _attached_. The reprints of
+1820 and 1825 read _attached to_.
+
+303. _He was shaked of a burning quotidian tertian._ _Henry V._, ii. 1.
+124, 91; ii. 3. 10.
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+Addison, Joseph, xix, 86, 134, 170, 306, 311, 315, 316, 329.
+  See _Spectator_.
+
+_Adventurer, The_, xix, xxxii, 347.
+
+Aeschylus, 55.
+
+Akenside, Mark, lv.
+
+Aleria, Bishop of, 158, 326.
+
+Alleyn, Edward, 341.
+
+Ames, Joseph, 186, 199, 210, 335.
+
+Anacreon, 136, 174, 330.
+
+_Andromana_, 181, 333.
+
+_Annual Register, The_, lx.
+
+Ariosto, 178, 201.
+
+Aristophanes, 108, 319, 331.
+
+Aristotle, 32, 50, 51, 56, 251, 311.
+
+_Arraignment of Paris_, 206, 308.
+
+_Arthur, Death of_, 133.
+
+Ascham, Roger, 132, 346.
+
+Ashmole, Elias, 331.
+
+Atterbury, Francis, xxxiv, xl.
+
+Aubrey, John, 205, 207, 340.
+
+Ayre, William, xxix.
+
+Bacon, Francis, Lord, 191.
+
+Bandello, 199, 210, 342.
+
+Barclay, Alexander, 175, 331.
+
+Barclay, James, lx.
+
+Bateman, Stephen, 185.
+
+Beattie, James, xx.
+
+_Beauties of Poetry_, 185.
+
+Beeston, William, 205, 340.
+
+Belleforest, 198, 199, 338.
+
+Bellenden, John, 195.
+
+Bentley, Richard, 81, 111, 158, 179, 315, 320.
+
+Bermuda Islands, 69, 314.
+
+Bernard, Sir John, of Abington, 22.
+
+Betterton, Thomas, xii, xiv, xxxviii, 20, 206, 306, 307, 312, 327.
+
+_Biographia Britannica_, xix, lvi, lxii, 204, 340.
+
+Birch, Thomas, xlviii, lvii, 324.
+
+Bishop, Hawley, l.
+
+Bishop, Sir William, 72.
+
+Blair, Hugh, xxxv.
+
+Blefkenius, 188, 336.
+
+Blount, Pope, xxxviii.
+
+Boccaccio, 178, 332.
+
+Bodley, Sir Thomas, 204.
+
+Boece, Hector, 195.
+
+Boisteau (Boaistuau), 210, 342.
+
+Boswell, James, xx, lx, 318, 322, 325, 335
+
+Boswell, James, the younger, 316.
+
+Boyle, Robert, 139, 324.
+
+Brantôme, 193.
+
+Broke, Arthur, 342.
+
+Broome, William, xli, 316.
+
+Browne, William, 340.
+
+Buchanan, George, 195, 196.
+
+Buckinghamshire, Duke of, xvi, 38, 309.
+
+Bunbury, Sir Henry. See Hanmer, _Correspondence_.
+
+Burbage, Richard, 68, 313, 345.
+
+Burgersdicius, 163, 326.
+
+Burmann, Peter, 163, 326.
+
+Butler, Samuel, 39, 169, 180, 309, 320, 342.
+
+Bysshe, Edward, 308.
+
+Cadogan, William, 262, 347.
+
+Camden, William, 205, 210, 342, 345, 346.
+
+Campion, Thomas, 190, 336.
+
+_Candide._ See Voltaire.
+
+Capell, Edward, xxviii, 197, 198, 212, 248, 338, 345, 347.
+
+Casaubon, 111.
+
+"Cassiopeia" (Theobald's proposed reading in _1 Henry VI._), xlvi.
+
+_Catiline._ See Jonson.
+
+_Cato._ See Addison.
+
+Cavendish, George, 200.
+
+Caxton, William, 183, 330, 336, 337.
+
+_Censor, The_, xi.
+
+Cervantes, 166, 181, 328.
+
+Chapman, George, 175, 331.
+
+Chaucer, 53, 133, 138, 158, 183, 185, 324, 332, 335.
+
+Cheke, Sir John, 132.
+
+Chrysostom, Saint, 108, 319.
+
+Churchill, Charles, lix.
+
+Churchyard, Thomas, 183.
+
+Cibber, Colley, 133, 307, 323.
+
+Cibber, Theophilus, xiii, 186, 327, 335.
+
+Cicero, 34, 36, 53, 109, 194, 337.
+
+Cinthio, 178.
+
+Clarke, Samuel, 320.
+
+Clerk, John, 132.
+
+Clopton, Family of, 70, 71.
+
+Collier, Jeremy, _Historical and Poetical Dictionary_, xxxviii.
+
+Colman, George, 199-201, 338.
+
+Combe, John, 21, 69, 70.
+
+_Comical Gallant._ See Dennis.
+
+Concanen, Matthew, xlviii.
+
+Condell, Henry, 51, 57, 60, 68, 144, 310.
+
+Congreve, William, 315.
+
+_Connoisseur, The_, 323, 339.
+
+Cooke, Thomas, 317.
+
+Cooke, William, xxi.
+
+Copley, Anthony, 342.
+
+Corbet, Richard, 345.
+
+Corneille, Pierre, 37, 127, 322.
+
+Cradock, Joseph, 162, 326.
+
+Crendon. See Grendon.
+
+_Critical Review, The_, lx, lxi, 326, 327, 334, 336, 338.
+
+_Criticism, Science of_ (Theobald's Preface), 81, etc.
+  (Warburton's Preface), 101, etc.;
+  uninstructive if general, 225, 347.
+  _Canons of Criticism_, see Edwards.
+
+Cruden, Alexander, 177.
+
+Cumberland, Richard, lxiii.
+
+_Cursory Remarks on Tragedy_, xxi.
+
+Dacier, André, 18, 86, 105, 307.
+
+_Daily Journal, The_, xliv, xlvi.
+
+Daniel, Samuel, 176, 190, 331, 336.
+
+Davies, John, 176.
+
+Dares Phrygius, 53, 187, 312.
+
+Davenant, Sir William, 6, 8, 14, 206, 307, 327.
+
+Dee, John, 180, 333.
+
+Dekker, Thomas, 208, 337, 340.
+
+Denham, Sir John, 167, 328.
+
+Dennis, John, _On the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare_, xvii, xxii,
+            xxxix, xl, 24-46;
+  veneration for Shakespeare, xi, 46, 310;
+  attitude to the dramatic rules, xvi, etc.;
+  attitude to Rymer, xvi, xl;
+  view on Shakespeare's learning, xxii, 31-46;
+  doctrine of "poetical justice," 27-29, 309;
+  _Letters to the Spectator_, xxxix;
+  _Impartial Critick_, xvi, xxxix;
+  _Comical Gallant_, xvii, xl, 304;
+  _Invader of his Country_, xl, 24;
+  _Letter to Steele_, xl, 309, 310;
+  _Characters of Sir John Edgar_, xl;
+  _Defence of a regulated Stage_, 304;
+  _Essay on the Operas_, 311;
+  criticised by Warburton, 105;
+  criticised by Johnson, 117, 140;
+  "attempted to stab a man in the dark," 329.
+
+De Quincey, Thomas, xix.
+
+_Dictionary, General_ (1739-40), lvii.
+
+Digby, Sir Kenelm, 191.
+
+Digges, Leonard, 167, 328.
+
+Dilworth, W. H., xxix.
+
+Dodd, William, 169, 174, 184, 329.
+
+Dodsley, Robert, 164, 327;
+  _Old Plays_, 181, 333.
+
+Dogget, Thomas, 306.
+
+Donne, John, 85, 182.
+
+_Dorastus and Faunia._ See Greene.
+
+_Double Falshood._ See Theobald.
+
+Douglas, Gawin, 176, 183, 188, 189, 336.
+
+Downes, John, _Roscius Anglicanus_, 307, 322.
+
+"Drake, Francis" (Pope's suggested reading in _1 Henry VI._), xlvi, 87,
+            316.
+
+Drayton, Michael, 109, 167, 320, 328.
+
+Dryden, John, xiii, etc.;
+  opinion on Shakespeare's learning, xxii, 41, 166, 167;
+  opinion on _Pericles_, 4;
+  identified Spenser's "Willy" as Shakespeare, 7;
+  view on Jonson's attitude to Shakespeare, 55, 305, 312;
+  _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, xiv, 160, 161, 166, 167, 305, 310, 322, 326;
+  version of the _Tempest_, 14;
+  prologue to the _Tempest_, 15, 254;
+  Epistle Dedicatory of the _Rival Ladies_, 308;
+  Preface to _Troilus and Cressida_, 307;
+  Preface to _Ovid's Epistles_, 39, 309;
+  _Defence of the Epilogue, etc._, 304;
+  _Discourse concerning Satire_, 305, 307, 313, 317;
+  _MacFlecknoe_, 181.
+
+Du Bartas, 167, 211.
+
+Dugdale, Sir William, 11, 67-70.
+
+_Edward III._, 212.
+
+Edwards, Thomas, 149, 319, 325.
+
+Eliot, John, 211, 344.
+
+_English Historical Review, The_, 340.
+
+_Esmond_, x.
+
+Euripides, 40, 55, 164.
+
+_European Magazine, The_, 329.
+
+Falkland, Lord, 14, 305, 306, 307.
+
+_Faerie Queen._ See Spenser.
+
+Falstaff, 5, 10, 11, 67;
+  Morgann's _Essay_, _passim_; 305.
+
+Farmer, Richard, _Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare_, xxvi, xxvii, xlv,
+            lxi, 162-215;
+  _Antiquities of Leicester_, lxi, 346;
+  _Letter to Steevens_, lxi;
+  "Pioneer of the commentators," 164.
+
+Farquhar, George, xv, 311, 322.
+
+Fenton, Elijah, xli.
+
+Fielding, Henry, xii, xxix, 322.
+
+Fleming, Abraham, 183.
+
+Fletcher, John, 15, 54, 110, 211, 320.
+
+Fletcher, Lawrence, 68, 314.
+
+Fuller, Thomas, xxxviii, 168, 305, 328.
+
+_Gamelyn, Tale of_, xxv, 133, 178, 323, 332.
+
+Gardiner, Stephen, 132.
+
+Garrick, David, xii, xiii, 193, 325.
+
+Gascoigne, George, 201, 339.
+
+Gay, John, xli.
+
+Gellius, Aulus, 178, 332.
+
+Genest, John, _English Stage_, xl, 322.
+
+_Gentleman's Magazine, The_, xxi, lx, 318, 327.
+
+Gerard, Alexander, 322.
+
+Gerson, Jean, 183.
+
+_Gesta Grayorum_, 200.
+
+Gibbon, Edward, xii.
+
+Gildon, Charles, attitude to the dramatic rules, xv, etc.;
+  opinion on Shakespeare's learning, xxii, 168, 183, 334;
+  relations with Dennis, xvi, 328;
+  criticised by Theobald, 86;
+  by Warburton, 105;
+  _Reflections on Rymer's Short __ View_, xvi, 305, 316;
+  supplementary volume of Rowe's edition, xxxix, and of Pope's, xli;
+  _Essay on the Stage_, xv, xxii, xxxix, 310, 311, 312, 316, 334;
+  _Remarks on Shakespeare_, xxxix, 312;
+  _Art of Poetry_, xvi, xli.
+
+_Golden Booke of the leaden Goddes_, 185.
+
+Golding, Arthur, 183, 190, 312, 336.
+
+Goldsmith, Oliver, xii, xiii, 326.
+
+Gonsaga, Hanniball, 207.
+
+_Gorboduc_, 140.
+
+Gosson, Stephen, 202.
+
+Gower, John, 178, 183, 332.
+
+Granville, George, Lord Lansdowne, xxxix, 306.
+
+Gravelot, Hubert Francois, 318.
+
+Gray, Thomas, xxxiv.
+
+Green, ?, author of "Specimen of a new version of the _Paradise Lost_ into
+            blank verse," 180, 333.
+
+Greene, Robert, 16, 206, 307, 343, 344.
+
+Grendon, 205, 340.
+
+Grey, Zachary, _Notes on Shakespeare_, xxv, 150, 169, 178, 197, 210, 317,
+            324;
+  _edition of Hudibras_, 111, 320;
+  other works, 320;
+  letter from Hanmer, lii.
+
+Grimald, Nicholas, 194, 337.
+
+_Guardian, The_, xi.
+
+Guthrie, William, xx, 195, 318, 323, 338.
+
+_Guy of Warwick_, 133.
+
+Haddon, Walter, 132.
+
+Hakluyt, Richard, 314.
+
+Hales, John, of Eton, 8, 168, 305.
+
+Hall, Edward, 192, 214, 337.
+
+Hall, Dr. John (Shakespeare's son-in-law), 22, 66.
+
+Hall, John, 340.
+
+Hall, Joseph, 189, 336.
+
+_Hamblet, Hystorie of_, 197, 338.
+
+_Hamlet, Miscellaneous Observations on_ (1752), xx.
+
+_Hamlet, Some Remarks on the Tragedy of_, xx, liii, 317, 318, 322.
+
+Hanmer, Sir Thomas, Edition of Shakespeare, xxix, lii-liv;
+  Preface, 92-95;
+  readings or notes, 171, 192, 208, 209;
+  _Correspondence_, liv, 317, 318, 320;
+  relations with Warburton, li, 98-101, 192;
+  criticised by Johnson, lix, 146, 147, 325;
+    by Grey, 324, 325.
+  See _Hamlet, Some Remarks on_.
+
+Hare, Francis, 111, 320, 321.
+
+Harington, Sir John, 202, 332, 339, 346.
+
+Harris, James, xx.
+
+Harvey, Gabriel, 189, 336, 344.
+
+Hawes, Stephen, 185.
+
+Hawkins, Sir Richard, 208.
+
+Hawkins, Sir John (1719-1789), 211, 343, 344.
+
+Hayman, Francis, 318.
+
+Hazlitt, William, x, xxxvii, 324.
+
+Hearne, Thomas, 202, 207, 339.
+
+Heath, Benjamin, xxxiii, 149, 171, 177, 209, 325, 329.
+
+Heminge, John, 51, 57, 60, 68, 144, 310, 313.
+
+Henryson, Robert, 335.
+
+Heywood, John, 208, 209, 210.
+
+Heywood, Thomas, 203, 210, 310, 312, 343.
+
+Hierocles, 115, 321.
+
+_Hieronymo_. See Kyd.
+
+Higgins, John, 185.
+
+_History of the Works of the Learned_, lvii.
+
+Hobbes, Thomas, 111, 321.
+
+Holinshed, Raphael, 176, 192, 195, 213, 214, 337, 346.
+
+Holt, John, 190, 206, 336, 341.
+
+Homer, 24, 40, 48, 77, 88, 109, 113, 158, 175, 187, 311.
+
+Horace, 3, 23, 30, 33, 40, 42, 43, 44, 74;
+  notes _passim_.
+
+Howard, James, 322.
+
+Howard, Sir Robert, 322.
+
+Howell, James, 210, 342.
+
+_Hudibras._ See Butler.
+
+Huetius, D. P., 155, 325.
+
+Hughes, John, xi.
+
+Hume, David, xxxv, 181, 333.
+
+Hurd, Richard, 170, 185, 187, 315, 322, 329, 335, 347.
+
+_Idler, The_, lix, 321.
+
+_Invader of his Country._ See Dennis.
+
+_Jack Drum's Entertainment_, 178, 331.
+
+Jaggard, William, 203, 340.
+
+James, Richard, 305.
+
+_Jew of Venice._ See Granville.
+
+Johnson, Samuel, Edition of Shakespeare, xxix-xxxi, lix, lx;
+  Preface, 112-161;
+  account of his own edition, 150, etc.;
+  account of earlier editors, xxx, xliv, 143, etc.;
+  examination of the dramatic rules, xix, etc.;
+    of tragi-comedy, 118, etc.;
+    of the unities, 126, etc.;
+  opinion on Shakespeare's learning, xxv, 135, etc.;
+  opinion of Farmer's essay, xxvii;
+  _Observations on Macbeth_, lix, 318;
+  Dedication to _Shakespear Illustrated_, lix, 323;
+  _Lives of the Poets_, xi, 323, 335;
+  Mrs. Piozzi's _Anecdotes_, 323;
+  allusions by Farmer to edition of Shakespeare, 166, 171, 201, 208, 211.
+  See _Idler_ and _Rambler_.
+
+Jonson, Ben, Relations with Shakespeare, 7-9, 54, 55;
+  compared with Shakespeare, 77;
+  "brought critical learning into vogue," 50;
+  "small Latin and less Greek," xxii, 41, 74, 135, 166, 167, 323, 327;
+  _Discoveries_, 22, 43, 51, 167, 328;
+  _Every Man in his Humour_, 176;
+  _Catiline_, 53, 310;
+  _Sejanus_,68, 211, 344;
+  _Bartholomew Fair_, 60;
+  _Ode on the New Inn_, 60, 179, 332.
+
+_Julius Caesar_ (alteration by the Duke of Buckinghamshire), 38, 309.
+
+Kames, Henry Home, Lord, xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxv, 322.
+
+Kemble, J. P., xxxvii.
+
+Kenrick, William, lx, lxiii, 323, 327, 339.
+
+_King Leire_, ballad, 323, 331.
+
+Kirkman, Francis, 206, 341.
+
+Kuster, Ludolf, 108, 176, 319, 331.
+
+Kyd, Thomas, 140, 193, 210, 338, 343.
+
+Laneham, Robert, 212, 345.
+
+Langbaine, Gerard, xxxviii, 23, 178, 181, 308, 339.
+
+Langland, William, 193.
+
+La Mothe, N.G. De, 211.
+
+Lauder, William, 182, 334.
+
+Le Bossu, xviii, 86, 105, 316.
+
+Le Loyer, Pierre, 191, 337.
+
+Lennox, Charlotte, lix, 175, 323, 330, 332.
+
+Lilly, William, astrologer, 177, 331.
+
+Lily, William, grammarian, 132, 163, 201.
+
+Linacre, Thomas, 132.
+
+Lipsius, Justus, 78, 159.
+
+Livy, 32, 309.
+
+Locke, John, 163, 315, 326.
+
+_Locrine_, 59, 203.
+  See Shakespeare, spurious plays.
+
+Lodge, Thomas, 178, 206, 312, 344.
+
+_London Magazine, The_, lx, 323, 325.
+
+_London Review, The_, lxiii.
+
+Longinus, 89, 317.
+
+Lope de Vega, 210.
+
+Lort, Michael, 188, 199, 336.
+
+_Lounger, The_, xxxiii, lxiii.
+
+_Love's Labour Wonne_, 178, 332.
+
+Lowin, John, 313.
+
+Lucan, 131, 323.
+
+Lucretius, 109.
+
+Lucy, Sir Thomas, 3, 67.
+
+Lycurgus, 109.
+
+Lydgate, John, 183, 187, 335.
+
+Lyttelton, George, Lord, xii, xxxiv.
+
+Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord, xxx, xxxi.
+
+Maginn, William, xxvi, xxvii.
+
+Malherbe, François de, 109.
+
+Mallet, David, 89, 316.
+
+Malone, Edmund, xxvii, xxxviii, 313, 340.
+
+Mantuanus, Baptista, 3.
+
+Manwaring, Edward, 180, 333.
+
+_Marks of Imitation_. See Hurd.
+
+Marlowe, Christopher, 183.
+
+Marot, Clément, 211.
+
+Marston, John, 181, 209.
+
+Martial, 328.
+
+Mason, George, xxxvii.
+
+_Menaechmi._ See Plautus.
+
+Ménage, Gilles, 109, 188, 319.
+
+Meres, Francis, 202, 212, 339, 341, 345.
+
+Merrick, Sir Gelley, 346.
+
+Middleton, Thomas, 334.
+
+Milton, John, 86, 249;
+  _Paradise Lost_, 110, 179, 180, 182, 320;
+  _L'Allegro_, 41, 167, 310, 328;
+  _Samson Agonistes_, 45, 310.
+
+_Mirror, The_, xxxiii.
+
+_Mirror for Magistrates, The_, 185.
+
+_Mist's Journal_, xliv.
+
+Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth, xx, lxii, 270, 347.
+
+_Monthly Review, The_, lx.
+
+More, Sir Thomas, 132, 185, 335.
+
+Morgann, Maurice, _Essay on Falstaff_, xxxiii, xxxvii, lxii, lxiii,
+            216-303;
+  object of the _Essay_, 217;
+  its "novelty," 218;
+  his opinion of Warburton, 248;
+  of Johnson, xxxviii, 248;
+  of Rymer, 251.
+
+Morris, Corbyn, lxii, 318.
+
+Muretus, 111.
+
+Nash, Thomas, 206, 212, 341, 343, 344.
+
+Nash, Thomas (husband of Shakespeare's grand-daughter), 22.
+
+Newcastle, Duke of, 198, 338.
+
+New-place, Stratford, 71, 72, 314.
+
+Newton, Sir Isaac, 111, 320.
+
+Newton, Thomas, 182, 320, 333.
+
+Nichols, John, xlii, etc., 314, 315, 316, 318, 346.
+
+North, Sir Thomas, xxv, 133, 171-174, 178, 330
+
+Northcote, James, xxvii.
+
+_Observer, The_, lxiii.
+
+Oldcastle, Sir John, 5, 241, 305.
+
+Oldmixon, John, 105, 319.
+
+Ovid, xxii, 39, 53, 184, 190, 203, 249, 312, 328, 336.
+
+Painter, William, 178, 199, 210, 331, 332, 342.
+
+_Palace of Pleasure._ See Painter.
+
+_Palmerin_, 133.
+
+Pauw, J. C. De, 174, 330.
+
+Peele, George, 206, 341.
+
+Percy, Thomas, 177, 331.
+
+Phaer, Thomas, 183.
+
+Phillippes, Augustine, 68.
+
+Phillips, Edward, xxxviii, 210, 343.
+
+Philpot, John, 210, 342.
+
+_Piers Plowman_, 193.
+
+Plautus, xxii, xxv, 9, 11, 38, 41, 53, 136, 200, 306, 310, 312, 324, 328,
+            339.
+
+Players, social position in Shakespeare's time, 59, 313;
+  bad taste, 51;
+  "the very worst judges of Shakespeare," 277.
+
+Plutarch, xxv, 32, 53, 133, 170-174, 178, 307, 309.
+
+_Poems on Affairs of State_, 308.
+
+Pole, Reginald, 132.
+
+Pope, Alexander, Edition of Shakespeare, xxviii, xl, xlv;
+  Preface, xviii, xxiii, xxxiv, xl, 47-62;
+  alterations in Rowe's _Account of Shakespeare_, xiv, xxxviii;
+  attitude to the dramatic rules, xviii;
+  opinion on Shakespeare's learning, xxiii, 52-55, 168;
+  debt to Betterton, 312;
+  error in Latin inscription, 70, 314;
+  relations with Theobald, xlii, etc., 78, 79;
+  attitude to Hanmer, liii;
+  criticised by Johnson, 143-145;
+  by Farmer, 172;
+  _Dunciad_, xviii, xl, etc., 184, 214, 316, 319, 320, 346;
+  _Homer_, xviii;
+  _Essay on Criticism_, 327;
+  _Temple of Fame_, 158, 326;
+  _Epistle to Augustus_, 311, 321, 324, 336;
+  "Scriblerus," 179, 332.
+
+Porter, Endymion, 8.
+
+Prior, Matthew, 170, 327, 329.
+
+Prynne, William, 183, 334.
+
+Puttenham, Richard, 174, 330.
+
+Quiney, Thomas (Shakespeare's son-in-law), 21, 66.
+
+Quintilian, 110, 320.
+
+Rabelais, 212, 345.
+
+_Rambler, The_, lix, 322, 325.
+
+Rapin, René, 105, 319.
+
+Ravenscroft, Edward, 202, 340.
+
+Rawlinson, Tom, 199, 338.
+
+Reed, Isaac, xxi, xxxviii, xli, 329.
+
+_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry._ See Percy.
+
+_Rex Platonicus._ See Wake.
+
+Riccoboni, Luigi, 200, 339.
+
+Rich, John, xliv, 318.
+
+_Richard II._, old play, 346;
+  adaptation, see Theobald.
+
+_Richard III._, Latin play by Dr. Legge, 346.
+
+Richardson, Jonathan, 182, 334.
+
+Richardson, William, xxi, xxxv, lxiii.
+
+Roberts, John, _Answer to Mr. Pope's Preface_, xli, 72, 314.
+
+Rollin, Charles, 163.
+
+_Romaunt of the Rose_, 183.
+
+Ronsard, Pierre de, 175, 211, 330.
+
+Roscommon, Earl of, 43, 310.
+
+Rowe, Nicholas, Edition of Shakespeare, xi, xxviii, xxxviii;
+  _Account of Shakespeare_, xiv, etc., xxii, etc., xxxviii, xxxix, 1-23;
+  Pope's version of the _Account of Shakespeare_, xiv, xxxviii;
+  attitude to the dramatic rules, xiv, etc., 10, 14, 16;
+  opinion on Shakespeare's learning, xxii, 2;
+  allusions by later editors, 66, etc., 97, 137, 143;
+    by Farmer, 206;
+  _Jane Shore_, xiv;
+  his "delicacy," 141.
+
+Rowley, William, 308, 341.
+
+Rymer, Thomas, xiv, etc., xl, 306, 308, 310;
+  criticised by Rowe, 9, 10, 20;
+    by Theobald, 78, 86;
+    by Warburton, 103, 105;
+    by Johnson, 117, 120;
+    by Morgann, 251;
+  _Foedera_, 69, 314.
+
+Sachs, Hans, 200, 339.
+
+Sallust, 34, 36.
+
+Salmasius, 111, 159.
+
+Saxo Grammaticus, 133, 197, 198, 338.
+
+Scaliger, J. C., 190, 337.
+
+Scaliger, J. J., 111;
+  quoted, 159.
+
+Schlegel, A. W. von, x.
+
+Selden, John, 14, 109, 307, 319.
+
+Seneca, 73.
+
+Serenus, Quintus, 79.
+
+Seward, Thomas, 320, 327.
+
+Sewell, George, xxiii, xxviii, xli, 168, 184, 305, 309, 310, 329, 334,
+            340.
+
+Shaftesbury, Earl of, xxxiv, 90, 317.
+
+Shakespeare, Rowe's biography, 1-23;
+  Theobald's account of his life, 65-72;
+  story of deer-stealing, 3, 67, 204, 304;
+  his father "a butcher," 205;
+  said to have been a "schoolmaster," 205, 207;
+  said to have "held horses," 164, 327;
+  acted the Ghost in _Hamlet_, 4, 206;
+  acted in _Sejanus_, 68;
+  story of dispute with Alleyn, 341;
+  popularity in eighteenth century, ix-xiii;
+  adaptations of his plays, xii-xiii;
+  his neglect of the dramatic rules, xiv-xxi, 10, 14, 16, 118, etc., 126,
+              etc.;
+  his learning, xxi-xxvii, 2, 31-46, 52-55, 74-76, 135, etc., 162-215,
+              249;
+  eighteenth century editions, xxvii-xxxi, 143, etc.;
+  his characters, xxxii-xxxviii, 48, 64, 116, 117, 247;
+  his power over the passions, 48;
+  his sentiments, 49;
+  attention to prevailing taste, 49, 73, 103, 104;
+  plays upon words, 13, 73, 125, 126, 267;
+  bombast, 45, 124;
+  anachronisms, 32, 56, 87, 124, 316;
+  his "magic," 14, 15, 252-254;
+  the "original of our English tragical harmony," 25, 140;
+  spurious plays, 59, 308, 313;
+  corruption of text, 51, 93, 248, 343;
+  sonnets neglected during eighteenth century, 312;
+  glossary, 83, 315, 317;
+  compared with Jonson, 77;
+  with Addison, 134, 323;
+  statue, 95, 318.
+
+"Shakespeare, William," _Compendious or Briefe Examination_, (1751), 204,
+            340.
+
+Sheares, William, 181.
+
+Shelton, Thomas, 181.
+
+Shiels, Robert, 335.
+
+Shippen, Robert, liii.
+
+Shirley, James, xlv, 181, 182, 333.
+
+Sidney, Sir Philip, xvi, 124, 183, 186.
+
+Skelton, John, 193, 337.
+
+Smith, Adam, xxxv.
+
+Smith, Joseph, liii, lvi.
+
+Smith, Sir Thomas, 132.
+
+Smith, William, 210.
+
+Smith, William, "of Harlestone in Norfolk," 317, 320.
+
+Somers, Sir George, 69, 314.
+
+Sophocles, 18, 40, 55, 176.
+
+Southern, John, 330.
+
+Spanheim, 111.
+
+_Spectator, The_, xi, 105, 307, 308, 309, 313, 319;
+  Dennis's Letters to, xxxix, xl, 309.
+
+Speght, Thomas, 335.
+
+Spence, Joseph, _Anecdotes_, 312, 322.
+
+Spenser, Edmund, 6, 7, 68, 69, 110, 140, 175, 183, 186, 314, 331, 335,
+            340.
+
+Stafford, William, 205, 340.
+
+Stanyhurst, Richard, 183, 189.
+
+Steele, Richard, x, xl.
+
+Steevens, George, xxvii, xxxviii, 313, 326, 340.
+
+Strype, John, 204.
+
+Suckling, Sir John, 8, 167, 305, 328.
+
+Summers. See Somers.
+
+Surrey, Earl of, 183.
+
+Sylvester, Joshua. See Du Bartas.
+
+Tacitus, 54.
+
+Tarlton, Richard, 212, 345.
+
+_Tatler, The_, x, xi.
+
+Taylor, Edward, xxi.
+
+Taylor, John, the Water-Poet, 163, 184, 208, 212, 326, 334, 344, 345.
+
+_Tempest_ (alteration by Dryden and Davenant), 14.
+
+Terence, 11, 200, 201, 320, 338, 339.
+
+_Testament of Creseide_, 186, 335.
+
+Thackeray, W. M., x.
+
+Theobald, Lewis, Edition of Shakespeare, xxix, xxx, xli-li;
+  Preface, xlvii, etc., 63-91;
+  account of his own edition, 80, etc.;
+  attitude to the dramatic rules, xvii;
+  views on Shakespeare's learning, xxiii, 74-76, 168, 314, 315;
+  relations with Pope, xlii-xlvi;
+  connection with Warburton, xlv-l, 314-317;
+  acknowledgment of Warburton's assistance, l, li;
+  debt to Warburton in Preface, xlvii-l;
+  criticised by Warburton, 98-101;
+  by Johnson, xxx, xliv, 145;
+  by Farmer, 171, 187, 201, 209, 213;
+  _Cave of Poverty_, xlii;
+  essays in _Censor_, xi, xvii;
+  _Richard II._, xviii, xxiv, xlii, 314, 330, 336;
+  _Shakespeare Restored_, xi, xxx, xlii-xliv, 314, 316, 327;
+  _Double Falshood_, xli, xlv, 179-181, 313;
+  proposed _Remarks on Shakespeare_, xlv;
+  proposed _Essay upon Mr. Pope's Judgment_, xlvi;
+  _Miscellany on Taste_, xlvi;
+  proposed edition of Poems, 83;
+  proposed Glossary, 83;
+  edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, 320;
+  "a' babbled of green fields," xliii.
+
+Thirlby, Styan, l.
+
+Thomson, James, 183.
+
+Thornton, Bonnell, 339.
+
+Tiptoft, John, Earl of Worcester, 337.
+
+Towers, William, 327.
+
+Trapp, Joseph, xx.
+
+_Tristram Shandy_, 214.
+
+Turberville, George, 178, 183, 332.
+
+_Two Noble Kinsmen_, 54, 211.
+
+Twyne, Lawrence, 183.
+
+Tyrwhitt, Thomas, lx, 332, 345.
+
+Udall, Nicholas, 201.
+
+Upton, John, xxiv, 149, 165, 167, 169, 170, 171, 175, 177, 178, 186, 188,
+            193, 194, 200, 318, 322, 324, 331.
+
+Urry, John, 335.
+
+Vaughan, Sir John, 14, 307.
+
+Victor, Benjamin, 181, 333.
+
+Virgil, 30, 54, 105, 184, 188, 189, 335.
+
+Voltaire, xx, 117, 131, 134, 221, 248, 249, 321, 323.
+
+Wagstaffe, William, 170, 329.
+
+Wake, Sir Isaac, 196, 338.
+
+Walkington, Thomas, 337.
+
+Waller, Edmund, 53, 310.
+
+Warburton, William, Edition of Shakespeare, xxix, liv-lix;
+  Preface, 96-111;
+  opinion on Shakespeare's learning, xxiv, 168, 315;
+  connection with Theobald, xxiii, xxiv, xxx, xlv, etc., lv, lvi, 98-101;
+  connection with Hanmer, li, lvi, lvii, 98-101;
+  early attacks on Pope, xlix, lv, lvi;
+  friendship with Pope, lviii, 97, 98;
+  references to Johnson, 101, 325;
+  criticised by Johnson, 147-149;
+    by Farmer, 184, 190, 202, 208, 209, 213;
+    by Morgann, 248;
+  letter to Concanen, xlviii, lv.
+
+Warner, William, 200, 306, 339.
+
+Warton, Joseph, xix, xxxii, xxxiii, 325, 347.
+
+Warton, Thomas, 205, 340.
+
+Water-Poet. See Taylor.
+
+Webb, Daniel, 185, 322, 335.
+
+Whalley, Peter, xxv, xxxii, 169, 183, 184, 188, 197, 210, 314, 329, 336,
+            340.
+
+Whately, Thomas, xxxvi.
+
+Whetstone, George, 178, 332.
+
+Whiston, William, 320.
+
+White, James, lxiii.
+
+Whytinton, Robert, 194.
+
+Windham, William, _Diary of_, 321.
+
+Winstanley, William, xxxviii, 206, 341, 343.
+
+_Wits, Fits, and Fancies_, 207, 342.
+
+Wood, Anthony, 205, 207, 340, 341.
+
+Wooll, John, _Memoirs of Joseph Warton_, 325.
+
+Worcester (or Botoner), William, 202, 337, 339.
+
+Wordsworth, William, xxxv.
+
+_Yorkshire Tragedy, The_, 181, 332.
+  See Shakespeare, spurious plays.
+
+Young, Edward, 323, 328, 347.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+_    1 Esmond_, ii. 10. Thackeray was probably recalling a passage in the
+      eighth _Tatler_.
+
+    2 In the _Life of Pope_.
+
+_    3 Guardian_, No. 37 (23rd April, 1713). The paper was written by John
+      Hughes (1677-1720), who had assisted Rowe in his edition of
+      Shakespeare (see Reed's Variorum edition, 1803, ii. p. 149).
+
+    4 Introduction to _Shakespeare Restored_.
+
+_    5 Dialogues of the Dead_, xiv., Boileau and Pope.
+
+_    6 Memoirs_, ed. Birkbeck Hill, 1900, p. 105.
+
+    7 Chap. xviii. That the passage is animated by pique and that amusing
+      jealousy which Goldsmith showed on unexpected occasions is evident
+      from the _Present State of Polite Learning_, Ch. xi.
+
+    8 Cf. Theophilus Cibber's attack on Garrick's adaptations in his _Two
+      Dissertations on the Theatres_, 1756.
+
+    9 See the Prologue to _Jane Shore_:
+
+      "In such an age, immortal Shakespeare wrote,
+      By no quaint rules, nor hampering critics taught;
+      With rough majestic force he mov'd the heart,
+      And strength and nature made amends for art.
+      Our humble author does his steps pursue,
+      He owns he had the mighty bard in view;
+      And in these scenes has made it more his care
+      To rouse the passions than to charm the ear."
+
+   10 The note has reference to Biron's remark, towards the end of the
+      last scene, that a "twelvemonth and a day" is "too long for a play"
+      (ed. 1733, ii., p. 181). In Mr. Lounsbury's _Shakespeare as a
+      Dramatic Artist_, 1901--which I regret I did not see before the
+      present Introduction was in type--it is urged as "demonstration" of
+      Theobald's _sagacity_ that he had the insight to see that
+      Shakespeare's disregard of the unities was owing not to ignorance
+      but to intention. Theobald's note, however, has a suspicious
+      similarity to what Gildon had said in his _Art of Poetry_, 1718, i.,
+      p. 99. It is, says Gildon, "plain from his [Shakespeare's] own words
+      he saw the _absurdities_ of his own conduct. And I must confess that
+      when I find that ... he himself has written one or two plays very
+      near a _regularity_, I am the less apt to pardon his errors that
+      seem of choice, as agreeable to his lazyness and easie gain."
+
+   11 Cf. the _Dunciad_, i. 69-72, where the inducements of satire make
+      him adopt a decided attitude in favour of the dramatic rules.
+
+   12 No. 592. The quotation will prove the injustice of De Quincey's
+      attitude to Addison in his Essay on Shakespeare. De Quincey even
+      makes the strange statement that "by express examination, we
+      ascertained the curious fact that Addison has never in one instance
+      quoted or made any reference to Shakespeare" (_Works_, ed. Masson,
+      iv., p. 24).
+
+   13 It must be noted that some of Johnson's arguments had themselves
+      been anticipated in _Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet_, 1736.
+      The volume is anonymous, but has been ascribed to Sir Thomas Hanmer
+      (see below, p. liii). It examines the play "according to the rules
+      of reason and nature, without having any regard to those rules
+      established by arbitrary dogmatising critics," and shows "the
+      absurdity of such arbitrary rules" as the unities of time and place.
+      It is a well-written, interesting book, and is greatly superior to
+      the _Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Hamlet_, which
+      appeared, likewise anonymously, in 1752.
+
+      For references to other works previous to Johnson's Preface which
+      dispute the authority of the classical rules, see note on p. 126.
+
+   14 Johnson's opinion of Mrs. Montagu's _Essay_ has been recorded by
+      Boswell (ed. Birkbeck Hill, ii., p. 88). But the book was well
+      received. It went into a fourth edition in 1777, in which year it
+      was translated into French. It is praised by such writers as Beattie
+      and James Harris. Cf. Morgann, p. 270.
+
+   15 See Monsieur Jusserand's _Shakespeare en France_, 1898, and Mr.
+      Lounsbury's _Shakespeare and Voltaire_, 1902.
+
+   16 This book is ascribed in Charles Knight's untrustworthy _Studies of
+      Shakspere_, Book XI., to William Richardson (1743-1814), Professor
+      of Humanity in the University of Glasgow. Unfortunately the British
+      Museum Catalogue lends some support to this injustice by giving it
+      either to him or to Edward Taylor of Noan, Tipperary. The error is
+      emphasised in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. Though
+      Richardson upholds some of the more rigid classical doctrines, his
+      work is of a much higher order. The book is attributed to Richardson
+      in Watt's _Bibliotheca Britannica_, 1824, but it had been assigned
+      to Taylor in Isaac Reed's "List of Detached Pieces of Criticism on
+      Shakespeare," 1803. From the evidence of the _Gentleman's Magazine_
+      for 1797 (Vol. 67, Part II., p. 1076) it would appear that the
+      author was Edward Taylor (1741-1797) of Steeple-Aston, Oxfordshire.
+
+   17 The only extant Elizabethan translation of the _Menaechmi_, however,
+      is of later date than the _Comedy of Errors_. See note on p. 9.
+
+   18 It is to be noted that the three points above mentioned are dealt
+      with at considerable length in Farmer's _Essay_.
+
+_   19 Fraser's Magazine_, Sept., Oct., and Dec., 1837; reprinted in
+      _Miscellanies, Prose and Verse, by William Maginn_, 1885, vol. ii.
+
+   20 Recorded in Northcote's _Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds_, 1813, p.
+      90. An attempt to reopen the question has recently been made by Mr.
+      Churton Collins in three articles in the _Fortnightly Review_
+      (April, May, and July, 1903). Mr. Churton Collins believes that
+      Shakespeare had a first-hand knowledge of Ovid, Plautus, Seneca,
+      Horace, Lucretius, Cicero, Terence, and Virgil, and that he was more
+      or less familiar with the Greek dramatists through the medium of the
+      Latin language.
+
+_   21 Journey from this World to the Next_, ch. viii.
+
+_   22 The Life of Alexander Pope, Esq._, by W. H. Dilworth, 1759, pp.
+      83-4. Cf. William Ayre's _Memoirs of Pope_, 1745 (on which
+      Dilworth's _Life_ is founded), vol. i., p. 273.
+
+   23 It should be noted that Theobald had said that the _second_ Folio
+      "in the generality is esteemed as the best impression of
+      Shakespeare" (_Shakespeare Restored_, p. 70).
+
+   24 See the "Life of Johnson" contributed to the eighth edition of the
+      _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, and reprinted in the ninth.
+
+   25 This had been recognised also by Whalley (_Enquiry_, 1748, p. 17).
+
+   26 See the Dedication of the _Revisal of Shakespeare's Text_.
+
+_   27 Characteristicks_, 1711, i., p. 275.
+
+   28 See Pope's _Works_, ed. Elwin and Courthope, ix., p. 26.
+
+   29 From a letter to Richard West, written apparently in 1742: see
+      _Works_, ed. Gosse, ii., p. 109.
+
+   30 Richardson believed that the greatest blemishes in Shakespeare
+      "proceeded from his want of consummate taste." The same idea had
+      been expressed more forcibly by Hume in his Appendix to the Reign of
+      James I.: "His total ignorance of all theatrical art and conduct,
+      however material a defect, yet, as it affects the spectator rather
+      than the reader, we can more easily excuse than that want of taste
+      which often prevails in his productions, and which gives way only by
+      intervals to the irradiations of genius." Hugh Blair, whose name is
+      associated with the Edinburgh edition of 1753, had said in his
+      lectures on rhetoric in the University of Edinburgh that Shakespeare
+      was "deficient in just taste, and altogether unassisted by knowledge
+      or art." And Adam Smith believed so strongly in the French doctrines
+      that Wordsworth could call him "the worst critic, David Hume not
+      excepted, that Scotland, a soil to which this sort of weed seems
+      natural, has produced." Kames, however, was a Scot.
+
+   31 Hazlitt confounds Whately with George Mason, author of _An Essay on
+      Design in Gardening_, 1768. Whately's book was published as "by the
+      author of _Observations on Modern Gardening_." His name was given in
+      the second edition, 1808.
+
+      J. P. Kemble replied to Whately's _Remarks_ in _Macbeth
+      re-considered_ (1786; republished in 1817 with the title _Macbeth
+      and King Richard the Third_).
+
+   32 Morgann's kinship with the romantic critics is seen even in so minor
+      a matter as his criticism of Johnson; see p. 248.
+
+   33 Essay on "The Person of Shakspearian Criticism," _Essays and
+      Studies_, 1895, p. 270.
+
+   34 I am indebted to Dr. Aldis Wright for procuring for me the details
+      of Warburton's claims. As a few of the passages were omitted by
+      Theobald in the second edition, the following page references are to
+      the edition of 1733:
+
+      (1) P. xix, _This Similitude_, to _Nature and Science_, p. xx.
+      (2) P. xxi, _Servetur ad imum_, to _the more wonder'd at_, p. xxii.
+      (3) P. xxv, _That nice Critick_, to _Truth and Nature_, p. xxvii.
+      (4) P. xxx, _For I shall find_, to _this long agitated Question_, p.
+      xxxii. (p. 76).
+      (5) P. xxxiii, _They are confessedly_, to _Force and Splendor_, p.
+      xxxiv. (p. 77).
+      (6) P. xxxiv, _And how great that Merit_, to _ill Appearance_ (p.
+      77).
+      (7) P. xxxv, _It seems a moot Point_, to _from the spurious_, p.
+      xxxvi. (p. 78).
+      (8) P. xxxix, _For the late Edition_, to _have wrote so_, p. xl. (p.
+      81).
+      (9) P. xl, _The Science of Criticism_, to _Editor's Labour_, p. xli.
+      (pp. 81, 82).
+      (10) P. xlv, _There are Obscurities_, to _antiquated and disused_
+      (p. 84).
+      (11) P. xlvi, _Wit lying mostly_, to _Variety of his Ideas_, p.
+      xlvii. (pp. 84-86).
+      (12) P. xlviii, _as to Rymer_, to _his best Reflexions_ (p. 86).
+      (13) P. lxii, _If the Latin_, to _Complaints of its Barbarity_ (pp.
+      89, 90).
+
+      The passages which were retained are printed in the present text at
+      the pages indicated above within brackets. Cf. Notes, p. 89.
+
+   35 Mr. Lounsbury has said that Hanmer's authorship of this pamphlet "is
+      so improbable that it may be called impossible. The sentiments
+      expressed in it are not Hanmer's sentiments" (_Shakespeare as a
+      Dramatic Artist_, p. 60). But he has omitted to tell us how he knows
+      what Hanmer's sentiments are.
+
+_   36 Ld._ Falkland, _Ld. C. J._ Vaughan, _and Mr._ Selden.
+
+   37 Alluding to the Sea-Voyage of _Fletcher_.
+
+   38 Much ado about nothing, _Act 2_. _Enter_ Prince, Leonato, Claudio,
+      _and_ Jack Wilson, _instead of_ Balthasar. _And in Act 4._ Cowley,
+      _and_ Kemp, _constantly thro' a whole Scene_. Edit. Fol. of 1623,
+      and 1632.
+
+_   39 Such as,_
+
+      --My Queen is murder'd! _Ring the little Bell_--
+      --His nose grew as sharp as a pen, and _a table of Greenfield's_, &c.
+
+   40 See his Letters to me.
+
+   41 I believe the stage was in possession of some rude outline of
+      _Falstaff_ before the time of _Shakespeare_, under the name of _Sir
+      John Oldcastle_; and I think it probable that this name was retained
+      for a period in _Shakespeare_'s Hen. 4th. but changed to _Falstaff_
+      before the play was printed. The expression of "_Old Lad of the
+      Castle_," used by the Prince, does not however decidedly prove this;
+      as it might have been only some known and familiar appellation too
+      carelessly transferred from the old Play.
+
+   42 I doubt if _Shakespeare_ had Sir _John Fastolfe_ in his memory when
+      he called the character under consideration _Falstaff_. The title
+      and name of _Sir John_ were transferred from _Oldcastle_ not
+      _Fastolfe_, and there is no kind of similarity in the characters. If
+      he had _Fastolfe_ in his thought at all, it was that, while he
+      approached the name, he might make such a departure from it as the
+      difference of character seemed to require.
+
+   43 It would be no difficult matter, I think, to prove that all those
+      Plays taken from the English chronicle, which are ascribed to
+      _Shakespeare_, were on the stage before his time, and that he was
+      employed by the Players only to refit and repair; taking due care to
+      retain the names of the characters and to preserve all those
+      incidents which were the most popular. Some of these Plays,
+      particularly the two parts of Hen. IV., have certainly received what
+      may be called a _thorough repair_; that is, _Shakespeare_ new-wrote
+      them to the old names. In the latter part of Hen. V. some of the old
+      materials remain; and in the Play which I have here censured (Hen.
+      VI.) we see very little of the new. I should conceive it would not
+      be very difficult to feel one's way thro' these Plays, and
+      distinguish every where the metal from the clay. Of the two Plays of
+      Hen. IV. there has been, I have admitted, a complete transmutation,
+      preserving the old forms; but in the others, there is often no union
+      or coalescence of parts, nor are any of them equal in merit to those
+      Plays more peculiarly and emphatically _Shakespeare_'s _own_. The
+      reader will be pleased to think that I do not reckon into the works
+      of _Shakespeare_ certain absurd productions which his editors have
+      been so good as to compliment him with. I object, and strenuously
+      too, even to _The Taming of the Shrew_; not that it wants merit, but
+      that it does not bear the peculiar features and stamp of
+      _Shakespeare_.
+
+      The rhyming parts of the Historic plays are all, I think, of an
+      older date than the times of _Shakespeare_.--There was a Play, I
+      believe, of _the Acts of King John_, of which the bastard
+      _Falconbridge_ seems to have been the hero and the fool: He appears
+      to have spoken altogether in rhyme. _Shakespeare_ shews him to us in
+      the latter part of the second scene in the first act of _King John_
+      in this condition; tho' he afterwards, in the course of the Play,
+      thought fit to adopt him, to give him language and manners, and to
+      make him his own.
+
+   44 The reader must be sensible of something in the composition of
+      _Shakespeare_'s characters, which renders them essentially different
+      from those drawn by other writers. The characters of every Drama
+      must indeed be grouped; but in the groupes of other poets the parts
+      which are not seen do not in fact exist. But there is a certain
+      roundness and integrity in the forms of _Shakespeare_, which give
+      them an independence as well as a relation, insomuch that we often
+      meet with passages which, tho' perfectly felt, cannot be
+      sufficiently explained in words, without unfolding the whole
+      character of the speaker: And this I may be obliged to do in respect
+      to that of _Lancaster_, in order to account for some words spoken by
+      him in censure of _Falstaff_.--Something which may be thought too
+      heavy for the _text_, I shall add _here_, as a conjecture concerning
+      the composition of _Shakespeare_'s characters: Not that they were
+      the effect, I believe, so much of a minute and laborious attention,
+      as of a certain comprehensive energy of mind, involving within
+      itself all the effects of system and of labour.
+
+      Bodies of all kinds, whether of metals, plants, or animals, are
+      supposed to possess certain first principles of _being_, and to have
+      an existence independent of the accidents which form their magnitude
+      or growth: Those accidents are supposed to be drawn in from the
+      surrounding elements, but not indiscriminately; each plant and each
+      animal imbibes those things only which are proper to its own
+      distinct nature, and which have besides such a secret relation to
+      each other as to be capable of forming a perfect union and
+      coalescence: But so variously are the surrounding elements mingled
+      and disposed, that each particular body, even of those under the
+      same species, has yet some _peculiar_ of its own. _Shakespeare_
+      appears to have considered the being and growth of the human mind as
+      analogous to this system: There are certain qualities and capacities
+      which he seems to have considered as first principles; the chief of
+      which are certain energies of courage and activity, according to
+      their degrees; together with different degrees and sorts of
+      sensibilities, and a capacity, varying likewise in _degree_, of
+      discernment and intelligence. The rest of the composition is drawn
+      in from an atmosphere of surrounding things; that is, from the
+      various influences of the different laws, religions and governments
+      in the world; and from those of the different ranks and inequalities
+      in society; and from the different professions of men, encouraging
+      or repressing passions of particular sorts, and inducing different
+      modes of thinking and habits of life; and he seems to have known
+      intuitively what those influences in particular were which this or
+      that original constitution would most freely imbibe and which would
+      most easily associate and coalesce. But all these things being, in
+      different situations, very differently disposed, and those
+      differences exactly discerned by him, he found no difficulty in
+      marking every individual, even among characters of the same sort,
+      with something peculiar and distinct.--Climate and complexion demand
+      their influence; "_Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
+      and love thee after_," is a sentiment characteristic of, and fit
+      only to be uttered by a _Moor_.
+
+      But it was not enough for _Shakespeare_ to have formed his
+      characters with the most perfect truth and coherence; it was further
+      necessary that he should possess a wonderful facility of
+      compressing, as it were, his own spirit into these images, and of
+      giving alternate animation to the forms. This was not to be done
+      _from without_; he must have _felt_ every varied situation, and have
+      spoken thro' the organ he had formed. Such an intuitive
+      comprehension of things and such a facility must unite to produce a
+      _Shakespeare_. The reader will not now be surprised if I affirm that
+      those characters in _Shakespeare_, which are seen only in part, are
+      yet capable of being unfolded and understood in the whole; every
+      part being in fact relative, and inferring all the rest. It is true
+      that the point of action or sentiment, which we are most concerned
+      in, is always held out for our special notice. But who does not
+      perceive that there is a peculiarity about it, which conveys a
+      relish of the whole? And very frequently, when no particular point
+      presses, he boldly makes a character act and speak from those parts
+      of the composition which are _inferred_ only, and not distinctly
+      shewn. This produces a wonderful effect; it seems to carry us beyond
+      the poet to nature itself, and gives an integrity and truth to facts
+      and character, which they could not otherwise obtain: And this is in
+      reality that art in _Shakespeare_ which, being withdrawn from our
+      notice, we more emphatically call _nature_. A felt propriety and
+      truth from causes unseen, I take to be the highest point of Poetic
+      composition. If the characters of _Shakespeare_ are thus _whole_,
+      and as it were original, while those of almost all other writers are
+      mere imitation, it may be fit to consider them rather as Historic
+      than Dramatic beings; and, when occasion requires, to account for
+      their conduct from the _whole_ of character, from general
+      principles, from latent motives, and from policies not avowed.
+
+   45 These observations have brought me so near to the regions of Poetic
+      _magic_ (using the word here in its strict and proper sense, and not
+      loosely as in the _text_), that, tho' they lie not directly in my
+      course, I yet may be allowed in this place to point the reader that
+      way. A felt propriety, or truth of art, from an unseen, tho'
+      supposed adequate cause, we call _nature_. A like feeling of
+      propriety and truth, supposed without a cause, or as seeming to be
+      derived from causes inadequate, fantastic, and absurd,--such as
+      wands, circles, incantations, and so forth,--we call by the general
+      name _magic_, including all the train of superstition, witches,
+      ghosts, fairies, and the rest.--_Reason_ is confined to the line of
+      visible existence; our _passions_ and our _fancy_ extend far beyond
+      into the _obscure_; but however lawless their operations may seem,
+      the images they so wildly form have yet a relation to truth, and are
+      the shadows at least, however fantastic, of _reality_. I am not
+      investigating but passing this subject, and must therefore leave
+      behind me much curious speculation. Of Personifications however we
+      should observe that those which are made out of abstract ideas are
+      the creatures of the Understanding only: Thus, of the mixed modes,
+      virtue, beauty, wisdom and others,--what are they but very obscure
+      ideas of _qualities_ considered as abstracted from any _subject_
+      whatever? The mind cannot steadily contemplate such an abstraction:
+      What then does it do?--Invent or imagine a subject in order to
+      support these qualities; and hence we get the Nymphs or Goddesses of
+      virtue, of beauty, or of wisdom; the very obscurity of the ideas
+      being the cause of their conversion into sensible objects, with
+      precision both of feature and of form. But as reason has its
+      personifications, so has _passion_.--Every passion has its Object,
+      tho' often distant and obscure;--to be brought nearer then, and
+      rendered more distinct, it is personified; and Fancy fantastically
+      decks, or aggravates the _form_, and adds "a local habitation and a
+      name."
+
+      But passion is the _dupe_ of its own artifice and _realises_ the
+      image it had formed. The Grecian theology was mixed of both these
+      kinds of personification. Of the images produced by passion it must
+      be observed that they are the images, for the most part, not of the
+      passions themselves, but of their remote effects. _Guilt_ looks
+      through the medium, and beholds a devil; _fear_, spectres of every
+      sort; _hope_, a smiling cherub; _malice_ and _envy_ see hags, and
+      witches, and inchanters dire; whilst the innocent and the young
+      behold with fearful delight the tripping fairy, whose shadowy form
+      the moon gilds with its softest beams.--Extravagant as all this
+      appears, it has its laws so precise that we are sensible both of a
+      local and temporary and of an universal magic; the first derived
+      from the general nature of the human mind, influenced by particular
+      habits, institutions, and climate; and the latter from the same
+      general nature abstracted from those considerations: Of the first
+      sort the _machinery_ in _Macbeth_ is a very striking instance; a
+      machinery, which, however exquisite at the time, has already lost
+      more than half its force; and the Gallery now laughs in some places
+      where it ought to shudder:--But the magic of the _Tempest_ is lasting
+      and universal.
+
+      There is besides a species of writing for which we have no term of
+      art, and which holds a middle place between nature and magic; I mean
+      where fancy either alone, or mingled with reason, or reason assuming
+      the appearance of fancy, governs some real existence; but the whole
+      of this art is pourtrayed in a single Play; in the real madness of
+      _Lear_, in the assumed wildness of _Edgar_, and in the Professional
+      _Fantasque_ of the _Fool_, all operating to contrast and heighten
+      each other. There is yet another feat in this kind, which
+      _Shakespeare_ has performed;--he has personified _malice_ in his
+      _Caliban_; a character kneaded up of three distinct natures, the
+      diabolical, the human, and the brute. The rest of his preternatural
+      beings are images of _effects_ only, and cannot subsist but in a
+      surrounding atmosphere of those passions from which they are
+      derived. _Caliban_ is the passion itself, or rather a compound of
+      malice, servility, and lust, _substantiated_; and therefore best
+      shewn in contrast with the lightness of _Ariel_ and the innocence of
+      _Miranda_.--_Witches_ are sometimes substantial existences, supposed
+      to be possessed by, or allyed to the unsubstantial: but the Witches
+      in _Macbeth_ are a gross sort of shadows, "bubbles of the earth," as
+      they are finely called by _Banquo_.--_Ghosts_ differ from other
+      imaginery beings in this, that they belong to no element, have no
+      specific nature or character, and are effects, however harsh the
+      expression, supposed without a cause; the reason of which is that
+      they are not the creation of the poet, but the servile copies or
+      transcripts of popular imagination, connected with supposed reality
+      and religion. Should the poet assign the true cause, and call them
+      the mere painting or _coinage of the brain_, he would disappoint his
+      own end, and destroy the being he had raised. Should he assign
+      fictitious causes, and add a specific nature, and a local
+      habitation, it would not be endured; or the effect would be lost by
+      the conversion of one being into another. The approach to reality in
+      this case defeats all the arts and managements of fiction.--The whole
+      play of the _Tempest_ is of so high and superior a nature that
+      _Dryden_, who had attempted to imitate in vain, might well exclaim
+      that
+
+      "----_Shakespeare_'s _magic_ could not copied be,
+      Within that circle none durst walk but He."
+
+   46 Ænobarbus, in Anthony and Cleopatra, is in effect the Chorus of the
+      Play; as Menenius Agrippa is of Coriolanus.
+
+   47 The censure commonly passed on _Shakespeare's puns_, is, I think,
+      not well founded. I remember but very few, which are undoubtedly
+      his, that may not be justifyed; and if _so_, a greater instance
+      cannot be given of the art which he so peculiarly possessed of
+      converting base things into excellence.
+
+      "For if the Jew doth cut but deep enough,
+      I'll pay the forfeiture _with all my heart_."
+
+      A play upon words is the most that can be expected from one who
+      affects gaiety under the pressure of severe misfortunes; but so
+      imperfect, so broken a gleam, can only serve more plainly to
+      disclose the gloom and darkness of the mind; it is an effort of
+      fortitude, which, failing in its operation, becomes the truest,
+      because the most unaffected _pathos_; and a skilful actor, well
+      managing his tone and action, might with this miserable pun steep a
+      whole audience suddenly in tears.
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE***
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