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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 remembered 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," 2 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 Shakespeare which are grown out of use and obsolete, and many borrowed from other languages which are not enough naturalised 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

2 Act III. 5.

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 a 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 work of their most celebrated poets with the fairest impressions beautified with the ornaments of sculpture, well may our Shakespeare be thought to deserve no less consideration; and as a fresh acknowledgement hath lately been paid to his merit, and a high regard to his name and memory by erecting his statue at a public expense, 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.

3

'The monument set up in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, 1741.

WILLIAM WARBURTON

W

1698-1779

ILLIAM WARBURTON was born, the son of a Newark attorney, December 4, 1698, and died Bishop of Gloucester, June 7, 1779. He was educated at various small schools, and in 1714 articled in an attorney's office. Always a great reader, he included theology in his list of subjects, and was led to take orders in the English Church (1723). Awarded the M.A. degree by Cambridge in 1728, he was successively curate, vicar, King's Chaplain, Lincoln's Inn Preacher, Prebendary, Dean, and finally Bishop of Gloucester.

He was a voluminous and vigorous writer mainly in apologetics. His chief work, the "Divine Legation of Moses," was severely handled by Gibbon, the historian. It was a brilliant, scholarly, but paradoxical and futile mass of learning.

He and Pope formed a friendly alliance, although the parson had at one time roundly abused the poet.

In 1747 he brought out a new edition of Shakespeare's works, founded upon, although not bound by, Pope's text. He was a critic of the slashing order, and added little of value to the fast accumulating commentaries. He quarrelled fiercely with Theobald, accusing him of both ignorance and lack of critical ability. Time, however, did not justify the criticism. Warburton's Introduction is interesting reading.

WILLIAM WARBURTON'S PREFACE

[Prefixed to an octavo edition in eight volumes, 1747.]

Ir 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 abandoned to their own fortune, and unprotected by party or cabal. At length, indeed, they struggled into light, but so disguised and travestied that no classic author, after having run ten secular stages through 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,1 and turn myself to consider the remedies that have been applied to them.

Shakespeare'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 them into a better condition. The stubborn nonsense with which he was incrusted occasioned his lying long neg'Pope's Preface.

lected amongst the common lumber of the stage. And when that resistless splendour which now shoots all around him had, by degrees, broke through 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 learned 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 commonplace scraps from his writings. The truth is, Shakespeare's condition was yet but ill understood. The nonsense, now, by consent, conceived 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 showing 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, though 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 par

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