power: "I will conclude by saying of Shakspeare, 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 finished and regular, as upon an ancient majestic piece of Gothic architecture compared with a neat modern building; the latter is more elegant and glaring, but the former is more strong and more solemn. It must be allowed 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; though we are often conducted to them by dark, odd, and uncouth passages. Nor does the whole fail to strike us with greater reverence, though many of the parts are childish, ill-placed, and unequal to its grandeur." In 1726 LEWIS THEOBALD published a tract entitled 'Shakespear Restored, or Specimens of Blunders Committed and Unamended in Pope's Edition of this Poet.' In Pope's second edition of Shakspere, which appeared in 1728, was inserted this contemptuous notice: -"Since the publication of our first edition, there having been some attempts upon Shakspeare published by Lewis Theobald (which he would not communicate during the time wherein that edition was preparing for the press, when we, by public advertisements, did request the assistance of all lovers of this author), we have inserted, in this impression, as many of 'em as are judged of any the least advantage to the poet; the whole amounting to about twenty-five words." In the same year came out 'The Dunciad,' of which Theobald was the hero :"High on a gorgeous seat that far outshone Henley's gilt tub, or Flecknoe's Irish throne, Great Tibbald nods." decimos. The title-page of Theobald's Shakspere bore that it was 'collated with the oldest copies, and corrected, with Notes.' Pope's edition was not again reprinted in London; but of Theobald's there have been many subsequent editions, and Steevens asserts that of his first edition thirteen thousand copies were sold. Looking at the advantage which Pope possessed in the pre-eminence of his literary reputation, the preference which was so decidedly given to Theobald's editions is a proof that the public thought for themselves in the matter of Shakspere. Pope was not fitted for the more laborious duties of an editor. He collated, indeed, the early copies, but he set about the emendation of the text in a manner so entirely arbitrary, suppressing passage after passage upon the principle that the players had been at work here, and a blundering transcriber there, that no reader of Shakspere could rely upon the integrity of Pope's version. Theobald states the contrary mode in which he proceeded : "Wherever the author's sense is clear and discoverable (though, perchance, low and trivial), I have not by any innovation tampered with his text, out of an ostentation of endeavouring to make him speak better than the old copies have done. 'Where, through all the former editions, a passage has laboured 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 endeavoured to support my corrections and conjectures by parallel passages and authorities from himself, the surest means of expounding any author whatsoever." In a few years Theobald was deposed from this throne, and there, then, "Great Cibber Dr. Johnson accurately enough describes sate." The facility with which Theobald the causes and consequences of Pope's was transformed to Cibber is one of the many failure:-" Confidence is the common conproofs that Pope threw his darts and dirt sequence of success. They whose excellence about him at random. But Theobald took a of any kind has been loudly celebrated are just revenge. In 1733 he produced an ready to conclude that their powers are edition of Shakspere, in seven volumes octavo, universal. Pope's edition fell below his own which annihilated Pope's quartos and duo- | expectations, and he was so much offended, when he was found to have left anything for others to do, that he passed the latter part of his life in a state of hostility with verbal criticism." But Johnson does not exhibit his usual good sense and knowledge of mankind when he attributes Theobald's success to the world's compassion. He calls him weak and ignorant, mean and faithless, petulant and ostentatious; but he affirms that this editor, "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." This is mere fine writing. The real secret of Theobald's success is stated by Johnson himself:"Pope was succeeded by Theobald, a man of narrow comprehension and small acquisitions, with no native and intrinsic splendour of genius, with little of the artificial light of learning, but zealous for minute accuracy, and not negligent in pursuing it. He collated the ancient copies, and rectified many errors. A man so anxiously scrupulous might have been expected to do more, but what little he did was commonly right." It was because Theobald was "anxiously scrupulous," because he did not attempt "to do more" than an editor ought to do, that he had the public support. Nearly every succeeding editor, in his scorn of Theobald, his confidence in himself, and, what was the most influential, his want of reverence for his author, endeavoured to make Shakspere "speak better than the old copies have done." Each for a while had his applause, but it was not a lasting fame. There is little in Theobald's Preface to mark the progress of opinion on the writings of Shakspere. Some parts of this Preface are held to have been written by Warburton; but, if so, his arrogance must have been greatly modified by Theobald's judgment. There is not much general remark upon the character of the poet's writings; but what we find is sensibly conceived and not inelegantly expressed. We shall content ourselves with extracting one passage:"In how many points of sight 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 clothing of his thoughts attract us, how much more must we be charmed 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 improved in price when we come to reflect with what propriety and justness they are applied to character! If we look into his characters, and how they are furnished and proportioned 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!" Undeterred by the failure of Pope in his slashing amputations, Sir THOMAS HANMER appeared, in 1744, with a splendid edition in six volumes quarto, printed at the Oxford University Press. Nothing can be more satisfactory than the paper and the type. The work was intended as a monument to the memory of Shakspere; one of the modes in which the national homage was to be expressed :-"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 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." Capell, who came next as an editor, says truly of Hanmer that he "pursues a track in which it is greatly to be hoped he will never be followed in the publication of any authors whatsoever, for this were in effect to annihilate them if carried a little further." Collins's 'Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer on his Edition of Shakspeare's Works' is an elegant though not very vigorous attempt to express the universal admiration that the people of England felt for the great national poet. The verse-homage to Shakspere after the days of Milton had no very original character. The cuckoo-note with which these warblers generally interspersed their varied lays was the echo of Milton's "wood-notes wild," which they did not perceive had a limited application to some particular play-As You Like It, for instance. In Rowe's prologue to 'Jane Shore' we have,— "In such an age immortal Shakspeare wrote, practical wisdom, with a critic who delights in the most extravagant paradoxes, we might prefer the amusement of Warburton's edition to toiling through the heaps of verbal criticism which later years saw heaped up. Warburton, of course, belonged to the school of slashing emendators. The opening of his preface, tells us what we are to expect from him : "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 By no quaint rules nor hamp'ring critics thought fit to apply to it in the first instance, taught; With rough majestic force he mov'd the heart, art." Thomson asks "For lofty sense, Creative fancy, and inspection keen Through the deep windings of the human heart, 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 Collins's Epistle begins thus, speaking of the classic author, after having run ten secular works of Shakspere :stages through the blind cloisters of monks "Hard was the lot those injur'd strains endur'd, and canons, ever came out in half so maimed Is not wild Shakspeare thine and nature's boast?" T. Seward, addressing Stratford, says, "Thy bard was thine unschool'd." and mangled a condition." There is little in Warburton's preface which possesses any lasting interest, perhaps with the exception of his defence against the charge that editing Shakspere was unsuitable to his clerical profession : "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 Shakspeare's great sense, Aristophanes's best wit is but buffoonery; and, in comparison of Aristophanes's freedoms, Shakspeare writes with the purity of a vestal. 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 Shakspeare 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." CHAPTER IV. JOHNSON.-VOLTAIRE.-MRS. MONTAGU.-MARTIN SHERLOCK.-HUME. IT was in the year 1741 that David Garrick at once leaped into eminence as an actor, such as had not been won by any man for half a century. He was the true successor of Burbage, Betterton, and Harris. His principal fame was, however, like theirs, founded upon Shakspere. But it is a mistake to imagine that there had not been a constant succession of actors of Shakspere's great characters, from the death of Betterton to Garrick's appearance. His first character in London was Richard III. He made all the great parts of Shakspere familiar to the playgoing public for five-and-thirty years. The Alchymist' and the 'Volpone' of Ben Jonson were sometimes played; "The Chances,' and 'Rule a Wife and Have a Wife,' of Beaumont and Fletcher; but we are told by Davies, in his 'Dramatic Miscellanies,' that, of their fifty-four plays, only these two preserved their rank on the stage. This is a pretty ́convincing proof of what the public opinion of Shakspere was in the middle of the last century. The Prologue of Samuel Johnson, spoken by Garrick at the opening of Drurylane Theatre in 1747, is an eloquent expression of the same opinion: "When Learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes First rear'd the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose; Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new: Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toil'd after him in vain. His powerful strokes presiding truth impress'd, And unresisted passion storm'd the breast. "Then Jonson came, instructed from the school To please in method, and invent by rule; A mortal born, he met the gen'ral doom, "The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame, Nor wish'd for Jonson's art, or Shakspeare's fame. Themselves they studied; as they felt, they writ: Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit. Vice always found a sympathetic friend; eighteenth century, when, according to the They pleas'd their age, and did not aim to epitaph, the poet's forms were sunk in death mend. Yet bards like these aspir'd to lasting praise, Their slaves were willing, and their reign was Till Shame regain'd the post that Sense betray'd, And Virtue call'd Oblivion to her aid. 66 'Then, crush'd by rules, and weaken'd as refin'd, For years the pow'r of Tragedy declin'd; "To paint fair Nature, by divine command, came. Though sunk to death the forms the Poet drew, The Actor's genius bade them breathe anew; Immortal Garrick call'd them back to day: and lay in night, there had been thirteen editions of Shakspere's collected works, nine of which had appeared during the preceding forty years. Of Ben Jonson there had been three editions in the seventeenth century, and one in the eighteenth; of Beaumont and Fletcher two in the seventeenth century, and one in the eighteenth. Yet, absurd and impertinent as it may be to talk of immortal Garrick calling the plays of Shakspere back to day, it cannot be denied that the very power of those plays to create a school of great actors was in itself a cause of their extension amongst readers. The most monstrous alterations, perpetrated with the worst taste, and with the most essential ignorance of Shakspere's art, were still in some sort tributes to his power. The actors sent many to read Shakspere with a true delight; and then it was felt how little he needed the aid of acting, and how much indeed of his highest excellence could only be received into the mind by reverent meditation. In 1765 appeared, in eight volumes octavo, "The Plays of William Shakspeare, with the Corrections and Illustrations of various Commentators: to which are added Notes by Samuel JOHNSON.' This was the foundation of the variorum editions, the principle of which has been to select from all the commentary, or nearly all, that has been produced, every opinion upon a passage, however conflicting. The respective value of the critics who had preceded him are fully discussed by Johnson in the latter part of his Preface: this branch of the subject was only of temporary interest. But the larger portion of Johnson's Preface not only to a certain extent represented the tone of opinion in Johnson's age, but was written with so much pomp of diction, with such apparent candour, and with such abundant manifestations of good sense, that, perhaps more than any other production, it has influenced the Shakspeare and Garrick like twin stars shall public opinion of Shakspere up to this day. shine, And earth irradiate with a beam divine." That the influence has been, for the most part, evil, we have no hesitation in believing. This celebrated Preface is accessible to most Up to the end of the first half of the readers of Shakspere. |