frequent, smoothed the cadence, or regulated the wholly in my power; for what could be their measure; on these I have not exercised the same care of colons and commas, who corrupted words rigour; if only a word was transposed, or a par- and sentences? Whatever could be done by adticle inserted or omitted, I have sometimes suf-justing points, is therefore silently performed, in fered the line to stand; for the inconstancy of some plays with much diligence, in others with the copies is such, as that some liberties may be less; it is hard to keep a busy eye steadily fixed easily permitted. But this practice I have not upon evanescent atoms, or a discursive mind suffered to proceed far, having restored the pri- upon evanescent truth. mitive 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 light, without notice, and sometimes with an account of the reasons of the change.

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.

Conjecture, though it be sometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly or 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 As I practised conjecture more, I learned to we who read it only by imagination. But it is trust it less; and after I had printed a few plays, evident that they have often made strange mis-resolved to insert none of my own readings in takes by ignorance or negligence, and that there- the text. Upon this caution I now congratulate fore something may be properly attempted by myself, for every day increases my doubt of my criticism, keeping the middle way between pre- emendations. sumption and timidity.

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.

Since I have confined my imagination to the Such criticism I have attempted to practise, margin, it must not be considered as very repre and where any passage appeared inextricably hensible, if I have suffered it to play some freaks perplexed, have endeavoured to discover how it in its own dominion. There is no danger in conmay be recalled to sense, with least violence.jecture, if it be proposed as conjecture; and But my first labour is, always to turn the old text on every side, and try if there be any interstice, through which the 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 Shakspeare 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

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 showing, 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,

That a conjectural critic 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.

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 Shakspeare, 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 It is an unhappy state, in which danger is hid obscurity, through integrity and corruption; let under pleasure. The allurements of emen-him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue dation 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.

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 shows the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the whole is discerned no longer.

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 critics of ancient authors have, in the exercise of their sagacity, many assistances, which the editor of Shakspeare 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 re- It is not very grateful to consider how little the gimen, but invariable quantities, which direct and succession of editors has added to this author's Confine the choice. There are commonly more power of pleasing. He was read, admired, stumanuscripts than one; and they do not often died, and imitated, while he was yet deformed conspire in the same mistakes. Yet Scaliger with all the improprieties which ignorance and could confess to Salmasius how little satisfaction neglect could accumulate upon him; while the his emendations gave him. Illudunt nobis con- reading was yet not rectified, nor his allusions jectura nostra, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam in understood; yet then did Dryden pronounce, that meliores codices incidimus. And Lipsius could Shakspeare was the "man, who, of all modern, complain, that critics were making faults by try- and perhaps ancient, poets, had the largest and ing to remove them; Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc reme- most comprehensive soul. All the images of diis laboratur. And, indeed, where mere conjec- nature were still present to him, and he drew ture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger them not laboriously, but luckily; when he de and Lipsius, notwithstanding their wonderful scribes any thing, you more than see it, you feel sagacity and erudition, are often vague and dis-it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted putable, like mine or Theobald's. learning, give him the greater commendation: Perhaps I may not be more censured fordoing he was naturally learned: he needed not the wrong, than for doing little; for raising in the spectacles of books to read nature: he looked public expectations which at last I have not inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he answered. The expectation of ignorance is in-is every where alike; were he so, I should do him definite, and that of knowledge is often tyranni-injury to compare him with the greatest of mancal. It is hard to satisfy those who knew not kind. He is many times flat and insipid; his 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 endeavored 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 obseure, which I have not endeavoured to illustrate. In many I have failed, like others; and from

comic 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,

"Quantam denta solent inter viburna cupressi.'"
It is to be lamented that such a writer should

works unworthy to be preserved, which the critics of following ages were to contend for the fame of restoring and explaining.

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, Among these candidates of inferior fame, I am has happened to Shakspeare, by accident and now to stand the judgment of the public; and time; and more than has been suffered by any wish that I could confidently produce my comother writer since the use of types, has been suf-mentary as equal to the encouragement which I fered by him, through his own negligence of have had the honour of receiving. Every work of fame, or perhaps by that superiority of mind, this kind is by its nature deficient, and I should feel which despised its own performances, when it little solicitude about the sentence, were it to be compared them with its powers, and judged those pronounced only by the skilful and the learned.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

PLAYS OF SHAKSPEARE.

TEMPEST.

"Titus Andronicus:" and it will be found more credible, that Shakspeare might sometimes sink below his highest flights, than that any other should rise up to his lowest.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

It is observed of "The Tempest," that its plan is regular; this the author of "The Revisal" thinks, what I think too, an accidental effect of the story, not intended or regarded by our author. But whatever might be ShakOf this play there is a tradition preserved by speare's intention in forming or adopting the plot, Mr. Rowe, that it was written at the command he has made it instrumental to the production of of queen Elizabeth, who was so delighted with many characters diversified with boundless in- the character of Falstaff, that she wished it to be vention, and preserved with profound skill in diffused through more plays; but suspecting that nature, extensive knowledge of opinions, and it might pall by continued uniformity, directed accurate observation of life. In a single drama the poet to diversify his manner by showing him are here exhibited princes, courtiers, and sailors, in love. No task is harder than that of writing all speaking in their real characters. There is to the ideas of another. Shakspeare knew what the agency of airy spirits, and of an earthly the queen, if the story be true, seems not to have goblin; the operations of magic, the tumults of a storm, the adventures of a desert island, the the selfish craft, the careless jollity, and the lazy known, that by any real passion of tenderness, native effusion of untaught affection, the punish-luxury of Falstaff must have suffered so much ment of guilt, and the final happiness of the pair for whom our passions and reason are equally

interested.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

abatement, that little of his former cast would have remained. Falstaff could not love, but by ceasing to be Falstaff. He could only counterfeit love, and his profession could be prompted, the poet approached as near as he could to the not by the hope of pleasure, but of money. Thus work enjoined him; yet having perhaps in the former plays completed his own idea, seems not to have been able to give Falstaff all his former power of entertainment.

number of the personages, who exhibit more This comedy is remarkable for the variety and characters appropriated and discriminated, than perhaps can be found in any other play.

In this play there is a strange mixture of knowledge and ignorance of care and negligence. The versification is often excellent, the allusions are learned and just; but the author conveys his heroes by sea from one inland town to another in the same country; he places the emperor at Milan, and sends his young men to attend him, but never mentions him more; he makes Protheus, after an interview with Silvia, say he has only seen her picture; and, if we may credit the ald copies, he has, by mistaking places, left his duced upon the English stage the effect of lanWhether Shakspeare was the first that proscenery inextricable. The reason of all this confusion seems to be, that he took his story from a guage distorted and depraved by provincial or novel, which he sometimes followed, and some-This mode of forming ridiculous characters can foreign pronunciation, I cannot certainly decide. times forsook, sometimes remembered, and some- confer praise only on him, who originally discotimes forgot. That this play is rightly attributed to Shak-vered it, for it requires not much of either wit or speare, I have little doubt. If it be taken from judgment; its success must be derived almost him, to whom shall it be given? This question ful mouth, even he that despises it, is unable to wholly from the player, but its power in a skilmay be asked of all the disputed plays, except resist.

The conduct of this drama is deficient: the

* Mr. Heath, who wrote a Revisal of Shakspeare's action begins and ends often before the conclu

sext, published in 8vo. circa 1760.

sion, and the different parts might change places | The story has been published in English, and I without inconvenience; but its general power, that power by which all works of genius shall finally be tried, is such, that perhaps it never yet had reader or spectator, who did not think it too soon at an end.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

There is perhaps not one of Shakspeare's plays more darkened than this, by the peculiarities of its author, and the unskilfulness of its editors, by distortions of praise, or negligence of transcription.

The novel of "Giraldi Cynthio," from which Shakspeare is supposed to have borrowed this fable, may be read in "Shakspeare Illustrated," elegantly translated, with remarks, which will assist the inquirer to discover how much absurdity Shakspeare has admitted or avoided.

have epitomized the translation. The transla tor is of opinion, that the choice of the caskets is borrowed from a tale of Boccace, which I have likewise abridged, though I believe that Shakspeare must have had some other novel in view.

Of "The Merchant of Venice," the style is even and easy, with few peculiarities of diction, or anomalies of construction. The comic part raises laughter, and the serious fixes expectation. The probability of either one or the other story cannot be maintained. The union of two actions in one event is in this drama eminently happy. Dryden was much pleased with his own address in connecting the two plots of his Spanish Friar," which yet, I believe, the critic will find excelled by this play.

66

AS YOU LIKE IT.

I cannot but suspect that some other had new- Of this play the fable is wild and pleasing. I modelled this novel of Cynthio, or written a story know not how the ladies will approve the faciwhich in some particulars resembled it, and that lity with which both Rosalind and Celia give Cynthio was not the author whom Shakspeare away their hearts. To Celia much may be forimmediately followed. The emperor, in Cyn- given for the heroism of her friendship. The thio, is named Maximine; the duke, in Shak-character of Jacques is natural and well preservspeare's enumeration of the persons of the drama, ed. The comic dialogue is very sprightly, with is called Vincentio. This appears a very slightless mixture of low buffoonery than in some remark; but since the duke has no name in the play, nor is ever mentioned but by his title, why should he be called Vincentio among the persons, but because the name was copied from the story, and placed superfluously at the head of the list by the mere habit of transcription? It is therefore likely, that there was then a story of Vincentio, duke of Vienna, different from that of Maximine, emperor of the Romans.

Of this play, the light or comic part is very natural and pleasing, but the grave scenes, if a few passages be excepted, have more labour than elegance. The plot is rather intricate than artful. The time of the action is indefinite; some time, we know not how much, must have elapsed between the recess of the duke, and the imprisonment of Claudio; for he must have learned the story of Mariana in his disguise, or he delegated his power to a man already known to be corrupted. The unities of action and place are sufficiently preserved.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

other plays: and the graver part is elegant and harmonious. By hastening to the end of his work, Shakspeare suppressed the dialogue between the usurper and the hermit, and lost an opportunity of exhibiting a moral lesson in which he might have found matter worthy of his highest powers.

TAMING OF THE SHREW.

Of this play the two plots are so well united, that they can hardly be called two without injury to the art with which they are interwoven. The attention is entertained with all the variety of a double plot, yet is not distracted by unconnected incidents.

The part between Katharine and Petruchio is eminently sprightly and diverting. At the marriage of Bianca, the arrival of the real father, The whole play is very popular and diverting. perhaps, produces more perplexity than pleasure.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

deep knowledge of human nature. Parolles is a boaster and a coward, such as has always been the sport of the stage, but perhaps never raised more laughter or contempt than in the hands of Shakspeare.

This play has many delightful scenes, though not sufficiently probable, and some happy chaIn this play, which all the editors have con-racters, though not new, nor produced by any curred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confessed that there are many passages mean, childish, and vulgar; and some which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden queen. But there are scattered through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

Wild and fantastical as this play is, all the parts in their various modes are well written, and give the kind of pleasure which the author designed. Fairies in his time were much in fashion; common tradition had made them familiar, and Spenser's poem had made them great.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

It has been lately discovered, that this fable is taken from a story in the "Pecorone" of Giovanni Fiorentino, a novelist, who wrote in 1378.

I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram; a man noble without generosity, and young without truth; who marries Helen as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate: when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a second marrage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness.

The story of Bertram and Diana had been told before of Mariana and Angelo, and, to confess the truth, scarcely merited to be heard a second

time.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

This play is in the graver part elegant and easy, and in some of the lighter scenes exquisitely humorous. Ague-cheek is drawn with

great propriety, but his character is, in a great measure, that of natural fatuity, and is therefore not the proper prey of a satirist. The soliloquy of Malvolio is truly comic; he is betrayed to ridicule merely by his pride. The marriage of Olivia, and the succeeding perplexity, though well enough contrived to divert on the stage, wants credibility, and fails to produce the proper instruction required in the drama, as it exhibits no just picture of life.

WINTER'S TALE.

The story of this play is taken from "The pleasant History of Dorastus and Fawnia," written by Robert Greene.

This play, as Dr. Warburton justly observes, is, with all its absurdities, very entertaining. The character of Autolycus is very naturally conceived, and strongly represented.

MACBETH.

KING HENRY IV. PART II.

I fancy every reader, when he ends this play, cries out with Desdemona, "O most lame and impotent conclusion!" As this play was not, to our knowledge, divided into acts by the author, I could be content to conclude it with the death of Henry the Fourth.

In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.

These scenes, which now make the fifth act of "Henry the Fourth," might then be the first of "Henry the Fifth :" but the truth is, that they When these plays were represented, I believe do unite very commodiously to either play. they ended as they are now ended in the books; but Shakspeare seems to have designed that the whole series of action, from the beginning of "Richard the Second," to the end of "Henry the Fifth," should be considered by the reader as one work, upon one plan, only broken into parts by the necessity of exhibition.

This play is deservedly celebrated for the propriety of its fictions, and solemnity, grandeur, None of Shakspeare's plays are more read and variety of its action, but it has no nice dis- than the "First and Second Parts of Henry the criminations of character; the events are too Fourth." Perhaps no author has ever in two great to admit the influence of particular dispo- plays afforded so much delight. The great events sitions, and the course of the action necessarily are interesting, for the fate of kingdoms depend determines the conduct of the agents. upon them; the slighter occurrences are divertThe danger of ambition is well described:ing, and, except one or two, sufficiently proand I know not whether it may not be said, in defence of some parts which now seem improbable, that in Shakspeare's time it was necessary to warn credulity against vain and illusive predictions.

The passions are directed to their true end. Lady Macbeth is merely detested; and though the courage of Macbeth preserves some esteem, yet every reader rejoices at his fall.

KING JOHN.

The tragedy of "King John," though not written with the utmost power of Shakspeare, is varied with a very pleasing interchange of incidents and characters. The lady's grief is very affecting; and the character of the bastard contains that mixture of greatness and levity which this author delighted to exhibit.

KING RICHARD II.

This play is extracted from the Chronicle of Hollinshed, in which many passages may be found which Shakspeare has, with very little alteration, transplanted into his scenes; particularly a speech of the bishop of Carlisle in defence of King Richard's unalienable right, and immunity from human jurisdiction.

Jonson, who, in his "Catiline and Sejanus," has inserted many speeches from the Roman historians, was perhaps induced to that practice by the example of Shakspeare, who had condescended sometimes to copy more ignoble writers. But Shakspeare had more of his own than Jonson, and if he sometimes was willing to spare his labour, showed by what he performed at other times, that his extracts were made by choice or idleness rather than necessity.

This play is one of those which Shakspeare has apparently revised; but as success in works of invention is not always proportionate to labour, it is not finished at last with the happy force of some other of his tragedies, nor can be said much to affect the passions, or enlarge the understanding.

bable; the incidents are multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention, and the characters and the profoundest skill in the nature of man. diversified with the utmost nicety of discernment,

The prince, who is the hero both of the comic and tragic part, is a young man of great abilities and violent passions, whose sentiments are right, though his actions are wrong; whose virtues are obscured by negligence, and whose understanding is dissipated by levity. In his idle hours he is rather loose than wicked; and when the occasion forces out his latent qualities, he is great without effort, and brave without tumult. The trifler is roused into a hero, and the hero again reposes in the trifler. This character is great, original, and just.

Percy is a rugged soldier, choleric and quarrelsome, and has only the soldier's virtues, generosity and courage.

But Falstaff, unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, how shall I describe thee? Thou compound of sense and vice: of sense which may be admired, but not esteemed; of vice which may be despised, but hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief and a glutton, a coward and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous, and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirizes in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he is so proud, as not only to be supercilious and haughty with common men, but to think his interest of importance to the duke of Lancaster. Yet the man thus corrupt, thus despicable, makes himself necessary to the prince that despises him, by the most pleasing of all qualities, perpetual gayety, by an unfailing power of exciting laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his wit is not of the splendid or ambitious kind, but consists in easy scapes and sallies of levity, which make sport, but raise no envy. It must be ob