publishing an undying edition of his works. This edition, after pompous advertisements, appeared in 1725, in six quarto volumes, and was republished in various forms in 1728, 1766, and in 1768. The edition proved to be anything but undying, inasmuch as it was very soon supplanted by that issued by Lewis Theobald. For Pope-as he himself afterwards gives us to understand-had, in his poetic geniality, made but a very hasty and imperfect comparison of the two folios with the then existing old quartos; in many instances he made arbitrary innovations in Shakspeares plays to suit his own taste, and on the other hand left much unaltered that required critical restoration, as L. Theobald has irrefutably proved.

*

Still, an edition of Shakspeare by Pope was an event, for he then stood in the zenith of his poetical celebrity, and was considered the first English poet of the day, nay, Voltaire even declared him to be the greatest of all living poets. His name, united with Shakspeare's, threw a lustre upon the latter which made him appear in a better light to that circle of scholars, critics, and men of genius who favoured the classic style. It was Pope, as already observed, who, in conjunction with Lord Burlington, Dr. Mead, and Martin, collected, by public subscription, the money for the monument which was erected to Shakspeare in Westminster Abbey, in 1741. In short, it may be said that Pope essentially contributed to the general honour and esteem which in our own day is paid to Shakspeare's name wherever the English language is spoken-we may add, wherever also the German tongue is known. This probably weighs more in Pope's favour than his light verses and his equally light thoughts.

And yet Shakspeare's genius was still far from being properly understood and appreciated. Pope, in his Essay on Criticism,' speaks in ready praise of Dryden, Denham, Waller and others, but has not one word in commendation of Shakspeare. This alone clearly characterises the standpoint of his æsthetic judgment. In the preface to his edition he does indeed speak in the highest praise of Shakspeare's plays, but the refrain is ever he is not *Shakspeare Restored, or a Specimen of the many_Errors as well Committed as Unamended, by Mr. Pope, etc., London, 1726.

correct, not classic, he has almost as many defects as beauties; his dramas want plan, or, at least, are extremely defective and irregular in construction; he keeps the tragic and the comic as little apart as he does the different epochs and nations in which the scenes of his plays are laid; the unity of action, of place and of time is violated in every scene, etc. These defects Pope, it is true, attributes partly to the bad taste of Shakspeare's age, to the defective state of the stage, and to his not having known the rules of criticism, partly also to the editors of Shakspeare's works. However, in these excuses we have but the reflex of Pope's own conceit and that of his age, which still cherished the belief that it was far superior to the days of Shakspeare. This also explains the boldness of Pope's corrections of Shakspeare, a boldness in which the next editors, if possible, even surpassed him.

Lewis Theobald's edition appeared in 1733 (in seven volumes), and was subsequently re-published several times; he, it is true, took much trouble in comparing the earlier prints both of the folios and of the various quartos. But, on the one hand, he did not examine all the quartos, and formed too high an estimate of the trustworthiness of the first folio, and, on the other, although expressly boasting of his great reading, he did not possess either sufficient historical or literary knowledge to be quite competent for his task. Lastly, like Pope, he did not sufficiently respect the words of the poet whose works he was editing. And as, moreover, he was not endowed with any very great amount of acumen and poetical taste, it happened but too often that he altered passages which he did not understand, or, for some reason considered corrupt, and without further hesitation admitted his corrections into the text. More crazy still in this respect were the proceedings of Sir Thomas Hanmer and Pope's friend and admirer, Bishop Warburton. The former, whose splendid edition was printed at the Oxford University Press (in six quarto volumes), and appeared first in 1744 and again in 1770-71, based his text upon that of Theobald's, occasionally improved it, but corrupted it still more by making numerous corrections which he

adopted wherever a passage seemed obscure or defective, or by interpolating a number of patch-words in order to make the versification quite correct; this he has done to such an extent that, when looking at his version, we can no longer imagine that we have Shakspeare before us, but a modern teller-of-syllables, à la Pope or Dryden. And again Warburton, whose edition appeared in 1747 in eight volumes, and is founded on Pope's text-although unsparing in his attack upon Theobald and Hanmer, and although free from the mania of making Shakspeare's versification pure and correct-proceeded in other points in a manner much worse than Hanmer. For he was as full of self-conceit and self-confidence as he was wanting in poetical mind and critical judgment, and hence unhesitatingly erased and altered whatever did not accord with his own æsthetic feeling.*

The same arrogance is reflected in the often exceedingly free and recklessly mutilated versions of Shakspeare's works, which not merely continued to be brought on the stage, but were even printed together with new editions of the original. Thus, for instance, 'The Merchant of Venice' was brought out at the theatre of Lincoln's Inn Fields, in a version made by Lord Lansdowne, furnished with music and other inappropriate ›rnamentation, enriched with a musical masque, Peleus and Thetis,' and with a banqueting scene, in which the Jew, who is dining at a separate table, gives a toast to his beloved Money; the character of Shylock is degraded into the clown of the play; in short, the whole is so distorted that it is inconceivable, not only how it could have found acceptance in this shape, but that it should have maintained an existence on the stage throughout several decades. Gildon mangled 'Measure for Measure' in a similar manner, and furnished it with 'musical entertainments;' this was printed in 1700. And not much later there appeared the following adaptations-Richard III.'by Cibber (1700), The Merry Wives of Windsor,' by Dennis (1702), A Midsummer Night's Dream' by Leveridge

This has been proved by the excellent American critic, Richard Grant White, by numerous examples in his Shakspeare's Scholar, being Historical and Critical Studies of his Text etc., London, 1854, p. 10 ff. 2 F

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(1716), Coriolanus' by Dennis (1721), As You Like It' by Charles Johnson (1723), Julius Cæsar' by the Duke of Buckingham (1722), 'The Taming of the Shrew' by Worsdale (1736), Much Ado About Nothing' by J. Miller (1737), King John' by Cibber (1744), A Midsummer Night's Dream' by Lampe (1745), and many others. The Duke of Buckingham, for instance, had turned Julius Cæsar' into two tragedies with choruses, quite in accordance with the ancient style. Worsdale's version of The Taming of the Shrew,' (A Cure for a Scold,') was a vaudeville; and Lampe trimmed ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream' (under the title of 'The Fairies') into an opera, after the fashion of the age.

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Garrick proceeded in a somewhat different manner with his adaptations and alterations of Shakspeare's plays. It Iwas in the character of Richard III. that he had won his first celebrity as an actor (1741). Accordingly, he was doubtless aware of the great stage-effect produced by Shakspeare's dramas when played by good actors. Therefore, like his great predecessor, Betterton, he endeavoured to re-establish them upon the stage. This he succeeded in doing, but only by more or less remodelling the plays, and in all cases removing the free jokes, which the prudery of English audiences could no longer endure: these jokes may certainly, in part, be dispensed with, inasmuch as they merely reflect the manners of the Elizabethan age. Some of these adaptations have been published, and we can see from them in what a reckless manner even Garrick treated Shakspeare's masterpieces. For instance, in Romeo and Juliet' (1750), he summarily cut out Romeo's passion for Rosalinde, and gave the end the forced, pathetic point-found in Bandello's novel-of allowing Juliet to awake before Romeo has died of the poison. The Tempest' (1756) he furnished with songs, and transformed it into a species of opera. In the same year appeared his adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew, under the title of Catherine and Petrucchio,' in which the original play-owing to the omission, transplacing, and contraction of several scenes--has dwindled down into a farce of three acts. "The Winter's Tale' (1758), and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1763), were

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treated in a similar manner. 'Cymbeline' (1761), and Hamlet' (1771), came off rather better.

We must, however, not overlook the fact that this mania for corrections on the part of editors and critics, as well as of dramatists and directors of theatres, had an honourable motive, in so far as, partly at least, it rested upon the honest belief that Shakspeare was a great poet, and that, accordingly, the many faults and defects met with in his dramas could not have originated with him, but with the corrupt state of the manuscripts which—as they thought-had been mutilated by alterations and additions on the part of actors, or by the carelessness, hurry, and uncertainty of compositors and editors. And, indeed, it is not only a well-known fact that the old quartos and folios were carelessly and incorrectly printed, but it is likewise probable enough that Shakspeare's plays, some at least, may have experienced various kinds of alterations, even in manuscript, from the unauthorised hand of the actor or manager to whose mercy they were left after Shakspeare's death.

But in spite of this belief, and in spite of the revival of Shakspeare's plays, nay, in spite of the Shakspeare Jubilee-which was arranged by Garrick, and celebrated with great pomp and general enthusiasm at Stratford, from the 6th to the 8th of September, 1769, and was, in part. repeated in London-there is but little trace of the effects of Shakspeare's genius upon the dramatic poetry of the day. Scarcely can we in Henry Brooke (born 1720, d. 1783)-one among a dozen dramatic poetsdetect any real influence of the study of Shakspeare. The critics of his day accuse Brooke of a want of correctness of composition, as well as of a want of fluency, and elegance of language; but his diction is powerful and bold, his composition is indeed defective, but his better piecesThe Earl of Westmoreland' (1741) and The Earl of Essex' (1760)—are infinitely more dramatic than most of the Frenchified productions of his contemporaries. His mind also, which is elevated by a spirit of patriotism and a noble thirst for freedom, has something of the manly, historical greatness of Shakspeare. However, his position was about as isolated as Milton's was in his day.