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GEORGE STEEVENS

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1736-1800

EORGE STEEVENS was born in Stepney, May 10, 1736, and died in his hermit retreat at Hampstead, January 22, 1800. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, although he received from the latter no degree. Unlike his great associate, Dr. Johnson, Shakespearean criticism was his vocation; to it he devoted his life, and to such good account, that the text he left behind him remained the standard for quite half a century, and is the basis of many modern editions.

He first made a departure from the beaten track of Shakespearean criticism, in that he devoted his virgin pen to the Quartos instead of the Folio copies. These he published in 1766, under the title "Twenty of the Plays of Shakespeare, being the whole number printed in quarto during his life-time, or before the Restoration."

In collaboration with Dr. Johnson, and assisted in a very moderate degree by Edmund Malone, he issued at ten volume edition in 1773; revised in 1778; which became the basis for Isaac Reed's edition of 1793. In 1779 he published Six Old Plays upon which Shakespeare founded the plays of "Measure for Measure," "Comedy of Errors," "Taming of the Shrew," "King John," "King Lear," "Henry IV.," and "Henry V." / Steevens was a man of most uncertain temper, which manifested itself in his literary as well as his domestic

life. He was led by a saturnine humour to play mischievous practical jokes of a literary turn, and used both the forged letter and the anonymous libel to further his ends.

His vitriolic jesting led him even to make obscene notes to coarse passages in the plays, and by some peculiar diabolism to attribute these comments to two amiable clergymen, whose names he mentioned.

No wonder that when he died Samuel Rogers wrote of him, "the outlaw is at last dead in his den."

The student of Shakespeare owes him an enormous debt.

GEORGE STEEVENS'S ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER

[Prefixed to Mr. Steevens's edition of twenty of the old quarto copies of Shakespeare, etc., in 4 volumes, 8vo. 1766.]

THE plays of Shakespeare have been so often republished, with every seeming advantage which the joint labours of men of the first abilities could procure for them, that one would hardly imagine they could stand in need of anything beyond the illustration of some few dark passages. Modes of expression must remain in obscurity, or be retrieved from time to time, as chance may throw the books of that age into the hands of criticks who shall make a proper use of them. Many have been of opinion that his language will continue difficult to all those who are unacquainted with the provincial expressions which they suppose him to have used; yet for my own part, I cannot believe but that those which are now local may once have been universal, and must have been the language of those persons before whom his plays were represented. However, it is certain, thạt

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the instances of obscurity from this source are very few. Some have been of opinion that even a particular syntax prevailed in the time of Shakespeare; but, as I do not recollect that any proofs were ever brought in support of that sentiment, I own I am of the contrary opinion.

In this time indeed a different arrangement of syllables had been introduced in imitation of the Latin, as we find in Ascham; and the verb was frequently kept back in the sentence; but in Shakespeare no marks of it are discernible; and though the rules of syntax were more strictly observed by the writers of that age than they have been since, he of all the number is perhaps, the most ungrammatical. To make his meaning intelligible to his audience seems to have been his only care, and with the ease of conversation he has adopted its incorrectness.

The past editors, eminently qualified as they were by genius and learning for this undertaking, wanted industry; to cover which they published catalogues, transcribed at random, of a greater number of old copies than ever they can be supposed to have had in their possession; when, at the same time, they never examined the few which we know they had, with any degree of accuracy. The last editor alone has dealt fairly with the world in this particular; he professes to have made use of no more than he had really seen, and has annexed a list of such to every play, together with a complete one of those supposed to be in being, at the the conclusion of his work, whether he had been able to procure them for the service of it or not.

For these reasons I thought it would not be unacceptable to the lovers of Shakespeare to collate all the

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