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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) + +Author: Lewis Theobald + +Commentator: Hugh G. Dick + +Release Date: July 22, 2005 [EBook #16346] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PREFACE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE *** + + + + +Produced by David Starner, Louise Hope and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class = "mynote"> +[Transcriber’s Note:<br> +A few typographical errors have been corrected. They are shown in the +text with <ins class = "correction" title = "like this">popups</ins>.] +</div> + +<hr> +<br> +<p align = "center"><font size = "+3"><b>The Augustan Reprint Society</b></font><br> +<br> +<br> +LEWIS THEOBALD<br> +<font size = "+1"><i>Preface to The Works of Shakespeare</i><br> +(1734)</font><br> +<br> +<font size = "-1">With an Introduction by</font><br> +Hugh G. Dick<br> +<br> +<br> +Publication Number <ins class = "correction" +title = "printed number 19, corrected by hand to 20">1̶9̶ <i>20</i></ins><br> +(Extra Series, No. 2)<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<font size = "-1">Los Angeles<br> +William Andrews Clark Memorial Library<br> +University of California<br> +1949</font></p> +<hr> +<div class = "contents"> +<a href="#intro">Editor’s Introduction</a><br> +<a href="#preface">Preface to Shakespeare</a><br> + <a href="#greek">Digression: Greek</a><br> +<a href="#ARSpubs">ARS Publications</a> +</div> +<hr> +<br> +<p align = "center"><i>GENERAL EDITORS</i><br> +<br> +<span class = "smallcaps">H. Richard Archer</span>, <i>Clark Memorial Library</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">Richard C. Boys</span>, <i>University of +Michigan</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">Edward Niles Hooker</span>, <i>University of +California, Los Angeles</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">H. T. Swedenberg, Jr.</span>, <i>University +of California, Los Angeles</i><br> +<br> +<br> +<i>ASSISTANT EDITORS</i><br> +<br> +<span class = "smallcaps">W. Earl Britton</span>, <i>University of Michigan</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">John Loftis</span>, <i>University of California, Los +Angeles</i><br> +<br> +<br> +<i>ADVISORY EDITORS</i><br> +<br> +<span class = "smallcaps">Emmett L. Avery</span>, <i>State College of +Washington</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">Benjamin Boyce</span>, <i>University of +Nebraska</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">Louis I. Bredvold</span>, <i>University of +Michigan</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">Cleanth Brooks</span>, <i>Yale +University</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">James L. Clifford</span>, <i>Columbia +University</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">Arthur Friedman</span>, <i>University of +Chicago</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">Samuel H. Monk</span>, <i>University of +Minnesota</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">Ernest Mossner</span>, <i>University of +Texas</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">James Sutherland</span>, <i>Queen Mary +College, London</i></p> +<br> +<hr> +<span class = "pagenum">1</span> +<a name="intro"> </a><br> +<p align = "center"><tt>INTRODUCTION</tt></p> + +<p><tt>Lewis Theobald's edition of Shakespeare (1734) is one cornerstone of +modern Shakespearian scholarship and hence of English literary scholarship in +general. It is the first edition of an English writer in which a man with a +professional breadth and concentration of reading in the writer's period tried +to bring all relevant, ascertainable fact to bear on the establishment of the +author's text and the explication of his obscurities. For Theobald was the first +editor of Shakespeare who displayed a well grounded knowledge of Shakespeare's +language and metrical practice and that of his contemporaries, the sources and +chronology of his plays, and the broad range of Elizabethan-Jacobean drama as a +means of illuminating the work of the master writer. Thus both in the edition +itself and in his Preface, which stands as the first significant statement of a +scholar's editorial duties and methods in handling an English classic, Theobald +takes his place as an important progenitor of modern English studies.</tt></p> + +<p><tt>It is regrettable, though it was perhaps historically inevitable, that +this pioneer of English literary scholarship should have been tagged "piddling +Theobald" by Pope and crowned the first king of <u>The</u> <u>Dunciad</u>. +Pope's edition of Shakespeare was completed by 1725, and in the following year +Theobald made the poet his implacable enemy when he issued his <u>Shakespeare</u> +<u>Restored</u>, which demolished Pope's pretensions as an editor by offering +some two hundred corrections. But the conflict was not merely strife between two +writers: it was a clash between two kinds of criticism in which the weight of +tradition and polite taste were all on the side of Pope. What Theobald had done, +in modern terms, was to open the rift between criticism and scholarship or, in +eighteenth-century terms, to proclaim himself a "literal critic" and to insist +upon the need for "literal criticism" in the understanding and just appreciation +of an older writer. The new concept, which Theobald owed largely to Richard +Bentley as primate of the classical scholars, was of course the +<span class = "pagenum">2</span> +narrower one--implicit in it was the idea of specialization--and Theobald's +opponents among the literati were quick to assail him as a mere "Word-catcher" +(cf. R.F. Jones, <u>Lewis</u> <u>Theobald</u>, 1919, p. 114).</tt></p> + +<p><tt>His own edition of Shakespeare, therefore, was the work of a man and a +method on trial. At first Theobald had proposed simply to write further +commentary on Shakespeare's plays, but by 1729 he determined to issue a new +edition and in October of that year signed a contract with Tonson. From the +first Theobald found warm support for his project among booksellers, incipient +patrons, and men of learning. His work went forward steadily; subscribers, +including members of the Royal Family, were readily forthcoming; and by late +1731 Theobald felt that his labors were virtually complete. But vexing delays +occurred in the printing so that the edition, though dated 1733, did not appear +until early in 1734, New Style. When it did appear, it was plain to all that +Theobald's vindication of himself and his method was complete. Judicious critics +like the anonymous author of <u>Some</u> <u>Remarks</u> <u>on</u> <u>the</u> +<u>Tragedy</u> <u>of</u> <u>Hamlet</u> (1736) were quick to applaud Theobald's +achievement, and even Pope himself was silenced.</tt></p> + +<p><tt>Ultimately of course Theobald came under severe attack by succeeding +editors of Shakespeare, notably Warburton and Johnson, yet both men were guilty +of unwarranted abuse of their predecessor, whose edition was nine times issued +in the course of the century and was still in current use by the time of +Coleridge (cf. Wm. Jaggard, <u>Shakespeare</u> <u>Bibliography</u>, 1911, pp. +499-504). Warburton and Johnson's abuse, coupled with that of Pope, obscured +Theobald's real achievements for more than a century until J.C. Collins did much +to rehabilitate his reputation by an essay celebrating him as "The Porson of +Shakespearian Criticism" (<u>Essays</u> <u>and</u> <u>Studies</u>, 1895, pp. +263-315). Collins's emotional defense was largely substantiated by T.R. +Lounsbury's meticulous <u>The</u> <u>Text</u> <u>of</u> <u>Shakespeare</u> +(1906), R.F. Jones's <u>Lewis</u> <u>Theobald</u> (1919), which brought much new +material to light, and most recently by R.B. McKerrow's dispassionate appraisal, +"The Treatment of Shakespeare's Text by his Earlier +<span class = "pagenum">3</span> +Editors, 1709-1768" (<u>Proceedings</u> <u>of</u> <u>the</u> <u>British</u> +<u>Academy</u>, XIX, 1933, 23-27). As a result, so complete has been Theobald's +vindication that even in a student's handbook he is hailed as "the great pioneer +of serious Shakespeare scholarship" and as "the first giant" in the field +(<u>A</u> <u>Companion</u> <u>to</u> <u>Shakespeare</u> <u>Studies</u>, 1934, +ed. H. Granville Barker and G. B. Harrison, pp. 306-07).</tt></p> + +<p><tt>Theobald's Preface occupied his attention for over a year and gave him +much trouble in the writing. Its originality was, and still is, a matter of +sharp dispute. The first we hear of it is in a letter of 12 November 1731 from +Theobald to his coadjutor Warburton, who had expressed some concern about what +Theobald planned to prefix to his edition. Theobald announced a major change in +plan when he replied that "The affair of the <u>Prolegomena</u> I have +determined to soften into a <u>Preface</u>." He then proceeded to make a strange +request:</tt></p> + +<blockquote><tt> +But, dear Sir, will you, at your leisure hours, think over for me upon the +contents, topics, orders, &c. of this branch of my labour? You have a +comprehensive memory, and a happiness of digesting the matter joined to it, +which my head is often too much embarrassed to perform.... But how unreasonable +is it to expect this labour, when it is the only part in which I shall not be +able to be just to my friends: for, to confess assistance in a <u>Preface</u> +will, I am afraid, make me appear too naked (John Nichols, <u>Illustrations</u> +<u>of</u> <u>the</u> <u>Literary</u> <u>History</u> <u>of</u> <u>the</u> +<u>Eighteenth</u> <u>Century</u>, 1817, II, 621-22). +</tt></blockquote> + +<p><tt>His next letter, which contains the list of acknowledgements substantially +as printed, thanks Warburton for consenting to give the requested help, +announces that he is himself busy about "the Contents... wch. I am Endeavouring +to modell in my Head, in Order to communicate them to you, for your Directions +& +<span class = "pagenum">4</span> +refinement," indicates that he has "already rough-hewn the Exordium & +Conclusion," and asserts that "What I shall send you from Time to Time, I look +upon only as Materials: wch I hope may grow into a fine Building, under your +judicious Management" (Jones, <u>op.</u> <u>cit.</u>, pp. 283-84).</tt></p> + +<p><tt>Warburton apparently misunderstood or overlooked Theobald's remarks about +materials, for in his next letter Theobald was obliged to return, somewhat +ambiguously, to the same point:</tt></p> + +<blockquote><tt> +I make no Question of my being wrong in the disjointed Parts of my Preface, but +my Intention was, (after I had given you the Conclusion, & the Manner in +wch. I meant to start) to give you a List of all the other general Heads +design'd to be handled, then to transmit to you, at proper Leisure, my rough +Working off of each respective Head, that you might have the Trouble only of +refining & embellishing wth: additional Inrichments: of the general +Arrangement, wch. you should think best for the whole; & of making the +proper Transitions from Subject to Subject, wch. I account no inconsiderable +Beauty (<u>Ibid.</u>, pp. 289-90). +</tt></blockquote> + +<p><tt>Finally on January 10, 1733, Theobald wrote Warburton: "I promise myself +now shortly to sit down upon ye fine Synopsis, wch. you so modestly call the +Skeleton of Preface" (<u>Ibid.</u>, p. 310).</tt></p> + +<p><tt>It is clear from the foregoing that Theobald wrote most of the Preface +topic by topic, and probably followed the plan for the general structure as +submitted by Warburton. Yet it is equally clear that certain parts of the +Preface, such as the contrast between <u>Julius</u> <u>Caesar</u> and Addison's +<u>Cato</u>, which Warburton later claimed as his and which Theobald omitted +from his second edition, were furnished Theobald as "additional Inrichments" +(D.N. Smith, <u>Eighteenth</u> <u>Century</u> <u>Essays</u> <u>on</u> <u>Shakespeare</u>, +1903, pp. xlviii-ix). When later a break did occur between the two men, +<span class = "pagenum">5</span> +neither was free from blame. Theobald had asked and got so much help with the +Preface that he should have acknowledged the debt, no matter how naked it might +have made him seem. Warburton, on the other hand, had had honest warning that +acknowledgement would not be made for this part of his help; and if his synopsis +were followed, as seems likely, his condemnation of the Preface as "Theobald's +heap of disjointed stuff" was disingenuous, to say the least. Far less +defensible was his assertion in the same letter to Thomas Birch that, apart from +the section on Greek texts, virtually the entire Preface was stitched together +from notes which he had supplied (Nichols, <u>Illustrations</u>, II, 81).</tt></p> + +<p><tt>Three further points concerning the Preface demand mention. First, the +section on Shakespeare's life is often dismissed as a simple recension of Rowe's +Life (1709). Actually, however, the expansion itself is a characteristic example +of Theobald's habit of exploring original sources. To take only a single +instance, Rowe says that Shakespeare's "Family, as appears by the Register and +Publick Writings relating to that Town, were of good Figure and Fashion there, +and are mention'd as Gentlemen" (ed. S.H. Monk, Augustan Society Reprints, 1949, +p. ii). To this statement Theobald adds plentiful detail drawn from the same +Stratford records, from tombs in the Stratford Church, and from documents in the +Heralds' Office connected with the coat of arms obtained for the playwright's +father. Such typical expansions were the result of conscientious research.</tt></p> + +<p><tt>Second, all critics have agreed to condemn the digression in which +Theobald advertised his ability to emend Greek texts. Theobald himself was +hesitant about including it lest he be indicted for pedantry, but was encouraged +to do so by Warburton, who later scoffed at what he had originally admired. This +much may be said in Theobald's behalf. Such a digression would not have seemed +irrelevant in an age which took its classical scholarship seriously; and such +digressions, arising naturally out of context and strategically placed before +the conclusion, were not +<span class = "pagenum">6</span> +only allowed but actually encouraged by classical rhetoricians like Cicero and +Quintilian, whose teachings were still standard in the English schools.</tt></p> + +<p><tt>Finally, the Preface exists in two forms. The later and shorter form was +that designed for Theobald's second edition (1740), which omits all passages +presumably contributed by Warburton and more besides, the section on Greek +texts, and the list of acknowledgements to contemporary Shakespearian enthusiasts. +This abridged form has been frequently reprinted. From a copy in the University +of Michigan Library the original Preface is here reproduced for the first +time.</tt></p> + +<p class = "indent"><tt>Hugh G. Dick<br> +University of California,<br> +Los Angeles</tt></p> +<br> +<hr> +<hr> +<a name="preface"> </a><br> +<p align = "center">THE<br> +<br> +<font size = "+3"><span class = "extended">WORKS</span></font><br> +<br> +OF<br> +<br> +<font size = "+3"><i>SHAKESPEARE:</i></font><br> +<br> +IN<br> +<br> +<font size = "+2">SEVEN VOLUMES.</font></p> + +<hr class = "short"> + +<p align = "center">Collated with the Oldest Copies, and Corrected;<br> +With NOTES, Explanatory, and Critical:<br> +By Mr. <span class = "extended"><i>THEOBALD</i></span>.</p> + +<hr class = "short"> + +<p align = "center"><i>I, Decus, i, nostrum: +melioribus utere Fatis.</i> Virg.</p> + +<hr class = "short"> + +<p align = "center"><span class = "extended"><i>LONDON:</i></span><br> +Printed for A. <span class = "extended">Bettesworth</span> and C. +<span class = "extended">Hitch</span>,<br> +J. <span class = "extended">Tonson</span>, F. <span class = "extended">Clay</span>, +W. <span class = "extended">Feales</span>,<br> +and R. <span class = "extended">Wellington</span>.</p> + +<hr class = "shorter"> + +<p align = "center">MDCCXXXIII.</p> + +<hr> + +<span class = "pagenum">i</span> +<br> +<p class = "preface" align = "center"><font size = "+1">THE</font><br> +<br> +<font size = "+4">PREFACE.</font></p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "firstletter">T</span>HE Attempt to write upon <span class = +"extended">Shakespeare</span> is like going into a large, a spacious, and a +splendid Dome thro’ the Conveyance of a narrow and obscure Entry. A Glare of +Light suddenly breaks upon you, beyond what the Avenue at first promis’d: and a +thousand Beauties of Genius and Character, like so many gaudy Apartments pouring +at once upon the Eye, diffuse and throw themselves out to the Mind. The Prospect +is too wide to come within the Compass of a single View: ’tis a gay Confusion of +pleasing Objects, too various to be enjoyed but in a general Admiration; and +they must be separated, and ey’d distinctly, in order to give the proper +Entertainment.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +And as in great Piles of Building, some Parts are often finish’d up to hit the +Taste of the <i>Connoisseur</i>; others more negligently put together, to strike +the Fancy of a common +<span class = "pagenum">ii</span> +and unlearned Beholder: Some Parts are made stupendiously magnificent and grand, +to surprize with the vast Design and Execution of the Architect; others are +contracted, to amuse you with his Neatness and Elegance in little. +<span class = "footnote"><i>A sketch of </i>Shakespeare’s<i> general Character.</i></span> +So, in <i>Shakespeare</i>, we may find <i>Traíts</i> that will stand the Test of +the severest Judgment; and Strokes as carelessly hit off, to the Level of the +more ordinary Capacities: Some Descriptions rais’d to that Pitch of Grandeur, as +to astonish you with the Compass and Elevation of his Thought: and others +copying Nature within so narrow, so confined a Circle, as if the Author’s Talent +lay only at drawing in Miniature.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +In how many Points of Light must we be oblig’d 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 cloathing of his Thoughts attract us, how much more must we +be charm’d 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 improv’d +<span class = "pagenum">iii</span> +in Price, when we come to reflect with what Propriety and Justness they are +apply’d to Character! If we look into his Characters, and how they are furnish’d +and proportion’d 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! How are they dress’d from the +Stores of his own luxurious Imagination; without being the Apes of Mode, or +borrowing from any foreign Wardrobe! Each of Them are the Standards of Fashion +for themselves: like Gentlemen that are above the Direction of their Tailors, +and can adorn themselves without the Aid of Imitation. If other Poets draw more +than one Fool or Coxcomb, there is the same Resemblance in them, as in that +Painter’s Draughts, who was happy only at forming a Rose: you find them all +younger Brothers of the same Family, and all of them have a Pretence to give the +same Crest: But <i>Shakespeare</i>’s Clowns and Fops come all of a different +House: they are no farther allied to one another than as Man to Man, Members of +the same Species: but as different in Features and Lineaments of Character, as +we are from one another in Face, or Complexion. But I am unawares launching into +his Character as a Writer, before I have said what I intended of him as a +private Member of the Republick.</p> +<span class = "pagenum">iv</span> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote"><i>Some Particulars of his private Life.</i></span> +Mr. <i>Rowe</i> has very justly observ’d, that People are fond of discovering +any little personal Story of the Great Men of Antiquity: and that the common +Accidents of their Lives naturally become the Subject of our critical Enquiries: +That however trifling such a Curiosity at the first View may appear, yet, as for +what relates to Men of Letters, the Knowledge of an Author may, perhaps, +sometimes conduce to the better understanding his Works: And, indeed, this +Author’s Works, from the bad Treatment he has met with from his Editors, have so +long wanted a Comment, that one would zealously embrace every Method of +Information, that could contribute to recover them from the Injuries with which +they have so long lain o’erwhelm’d.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +’Tis certain, that if we have first admir’d the Man in his Writings, his Case is +so circumstanc’d, that we must naturally admire the Writings in the Man: That if +we go back to take a View of his Education, and the Employment in Life which +Fortune had cut out for him, we shall retain the stronger Ideas of his extensive +Genius.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +His Father, we are told, was a considerable Dealer in Wool; but having no fewer +than ten Children, of whom our <i>Shakespeare</i> was the eldest, the best +Education he could afford him was no better than to qualify him for his own +Business and Employment. I cannot affirm with any Certainty how long his +<span class = "pagenum">v</span> +Father liv’d; but I take him to be the same Mr. <i>John Shakespeare</i> who was +living in the Year 1599, and who then, in Honour of his Son, took out an Extract +of his Family-Arms from the Herald’s Office; by which it appears, that he had +been Officer and Bailiff of <i>Stratford</i>, and that he enjoy’d some +hereditary Lands and Tenements, the Reward of his Great Grandfather’s faithful +and approved Service to King <i>Henry</i> VII.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Be this as it will, our <i>Shakespeare</i>, it seems, was bred for some Time at +a Free-School; the very Free-School, I presume, founded at <i>Stratford</i>: +where, we are told, he acquired what <i>Latin</i> he was Master of: but, that +his Father being oblig’d, thro’ Narrowness of Circumstance, to withdraw him too +soon from thence, he was so unhappily prevented from making any Proficiency in +the Dead Languages: A Point, that will deserve some little Discussion in the +Sequel of this Dissertation.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +How long he continued in his Father’s Way of Business, either as an Assistant to +him, or on his own proper Account, no Notices are left to inform us: nor have I +been able to learn precisely at what Period of Life he quitted his native +<i>Stratford</i>, and began his Acquaintance with <i>London</i>, and the +<i>Stage</i>.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +In order to settle in the World after a Family-manner, he thought fit, Mr. +<i>Rowe</i> acquaints us, to marry while he was yet very young. It is certain, +he did so: for by the +<span class = "pagenum">vi</span> +Monument, in <i>Stratford</i> Church, erected to the Memory of his Daughter +<i>Susanna</i>, the Wife of <i>John Hall</i>, Gentleman, it appears, that she +died on the 2d Day of <i>July</i> in the Year 1649, aged 66. So that She was +born in 1583, when her Father could not be full 19 Years old; who was himself +born in the Year 1564. Nor was She his eldest Child, for he had another +Daughter, <i>Judith</i>, who was born before her, and who was married to one Mr. +<i>Thomas Quiney</i>. So that <i>Shakespeare</i> must have entred into Wedlock, +by that Time he was turn’d of seventeen Years.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Whether the Force of Inclination merely, or some concurring Circumstances of +Convenience in the Match, prompted him to marry so early, is not easy to be +determin’d at this Distance: but ’tis probable, a View of Interest might partly +sway his Conduct in this Point: for he married the Daughter of one <i>Hathaway</i>, +a substantial Yeoman in his Neighbourhood, and She had the Start of him in Age +no less than 8 Years. She surviv’d him, notwithstanding, seven Seasons, and dy’d +that very Year in which the <i>Players</i> publish’d the first Edition of his +Works in <i>Folio</i>, Anno Dom. 1623, at the Age of 67 Years, as we likewise +learn from her Monument in <i>Stratford</i>-Church.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +How long he continued in this kind of Settlement, upon his own Native Spot, is +not more easily to be determin’d. But if the +<span class = "pagenum">vii<br>a</span> +Tradition be true, of that Extravagance which forc’d him both to quit his +Country and way of Living; to wit, his being engag’d, with a Knot of young +Deer-stealers, to rob the Park of Sir <i>Thomas Lucy</i> of <i>Cherlecot</i> +near <i>Stratford</i>: the Enterprize favours so much of Youth and Levity, we +may reasonably suppose it was before he could write full <ins class = +"correction" title = "original reads ‘Man .’">Many.</ins> Besides, +considering he has left us six and thirty Plays, which are avow’d to be +genuine; (to throw out of the Question those Seven, in which his +Title is disputed: tho’ I can, beyond all +Controversy, prove some Touches in every one of them to come from his Pen:) and +considering too, that he had retir’d from the Stage, to spend the latter Part of +his Days at his own Native <i>Stratford</i>; the Interval of Time, necessarily +required for the finishing so many Dramatic Pieces, obliges us to suppose he +threw himself very early upon the Play-house. And as he could, probably, +contract no Acquaintance with the Drama, while he was driving on the Affair of +Wool at home; some Time must be lost, even after he had commenc’d Player, before +he could attain Knowledge enough in the Science to qualify himself for turning +Author.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +It has been observ’d by Mr. <i>Rowe</i>, that, amongst other Extravagancies +which our Author has given to his Sir <i>John Falstaffe</i>, in the <i>Merry +Wives</i> of <i>Windsor</i>, he has made him a Deer-stealer; and that he might +at the same +<span class = "pagenum">viii</span> +time remember his <i>Warwickshire</i> Prosecutor, under the Name of Justice +<i>Shallow</i>, he has given him very near the same Coat of Arms, which +<i>Dugdale</i>, in his Antiquities of that County, describes for a Family there. +There are two Coats, I observe, in <i>Dugdale</i>, where three Silver Fishes are +borne in the Name of <i>Lucy</i>; and another Coat, to the Monument of <i>Thomas +Lucy</i>, Son of Sir <i>William Lucy</i>, in which are quarter’d in four several +Divisions, twelve little Fishes, three in each Division, probably <i>Luces</i>. +This very Coat, indeed, seems alluded to in <i>Shallow</i>’s giving the +<i>dozen</i> White <i>Luces</i>, and in <i>Slender</i> saying, <i>he may +quarter</i>. When I consider the exceeding Candour and Good-nature of our +Author, (which inclin’d all the gentler Part of the World to love him; as the +Power of his Wit obliged the Men of the most delicate Knowledge and polite +Learning to admire him;) and that he should throw this humorous Piece of Satire +at his Prosecutor, at least twenty Years after the Provocation given; I am +confidently persuaded it must be owing to an unforgiving Rancour on the +Prosecutor’s Side: and if This was the Case, it were Pity but the Disgrace of +such an Inveteracy should remain as a lasting Reproach, and <i>Shallow</i> stand +as a Mark of Ridicule to stigmatize his Malice.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +It is said, our Author spent some Years before his Death, in Ease, Retirement, +and the Conversation of his Friends, at his Native +<span class = "pagenum">ix<br>a2</span> +<i>Stratford</i>. I could never pick up any certain Intelligence, when He +relinquish’d the Stage. I know, it has been mistakenly thought by some, that +<i>Spenser</i>’s <i>Thalia</i>, in his <i>Tears of his Muses</i>, where she +laments the Loss of her <i>Willy</i> in the Comic Scene, has been apply’d to our +Author’s quitting the Stage. But <i>Spenser</i> himself, ’tis well known, +quitted the Stage of Life in the Year 1598; and, five Years after this, we find +<i>Shakespeare</i>’s Name among the Actors in <i>Ben Jonson</i>’s <i>Sejanus</i>, +which first made its Appearance in the Year 1603. Nor, surely, could he then +have any Thoughts of retiring, since, that very Year, a Licence under the +Privy-Seal was granted by K. <i>James</i> I. to him and <i>Fletcher</i>, +<i>Burbage</i>, <i>Phillippes</i>, <i>Hemmings</i>, <i>Condel</i>, &c. +authorizing them to exercise the Art of playing Comedies, Tragedies, &c. as +well at their usual House call’d the <i>Globe</i> on the other Side of the +Water, as in any other Parts of the Kingdom, during his Majesty’s Pleasure: (A +Copy of which Licence is preserv’d in <i>Rymer</i>’s <i>Foedera</i>.) Again, +’tis certain, that <i>Shakespeare</i> did not exhibit his <i>Macbeth</i>, till +after the <i>Union</i> was brought about, and till after K. <i>James</i> I. +had begun to touch for the <i>Evil</i>: for ’tis plain, he has inserted +Compliments, on both those Accounts, upon his Royal Master in that Tragedy.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Nor, indeed, could the Number of the Dramatic Pieces, he produced, admit of his +retiring near so early as that Period. So +<span class = "pagenum">x</span> +that what <i>Spenser</i> there says, if it relate at all to <i>Shakespeare</i>, +must hint at some occasional Recess he made for a time upon a Disgust taken: or +the <i>Willy</i>, there mention’d, must relate to some other favourite Poet. I +believe, we may safely determine that he had not quitted in the Year 1610. For +in his <i>Tempest</i>, our Author makes mention of the <i>Bermuda</i> Islands, +which were unknown to the <i>English</i>, till, in 1609, Sir <i>John Summers</i> +made a Voyage to <i>North-America</i>, and discover’d them: and afterwards +invited some of his Countrymen to settle a Plantation there. That he became the +private Gentleman at least three Years before his Decease, is pretty obvious +from another Circumstance: I mean, from that remarkable and well-known Story, +which Mr. <i>Rowe</i> has given us of our Author’s Intimacy with Mr. <i>John +Combe</i>, an old Gentleman noted thereabouts for his Wealth and Usury: and upon +whom <i>Shakespeare</i> made the following facetious Epitaph.</p> + +<div class = "verse"> +<i>Ten in the hundred lies here in-grav’d,<br> +’Tis a hundred to ten his Soul is not sav’d;<br> +If any Man ask who lies in this Tomb,<br> +Oh! oh! quoth the Devil, ’tis my </i>John-a-Combe<i>.</i> +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +This sarcastical Piece of Wit was, at the Gentleman’s own Request, thrown out +extemporally in his Company. And this Mr. <i>John Combe</i> I take to be the +same, who, by +<span class = "pagenum">xi<br>a3</span> +<i>Dugdale</i> in his Antiquities of <i>Warwickshire</i>, is said to have dy’d +in the Year 1614, and for whom at the upper End of the Quire, of the Guild of +the Holy Cross at <i>Stratford</i>, a fair Monument is erected, having a Statue +thereon cut in Alabaster, and in a Gown with this Epitaph. “Here lyeth +enterr’d the Body of <i>John Combe</i> Esq; who dy’d the 10th of <i>July</i>, +1614, who bequeathed several Annual Charities to the Parish of <i>Stratford</i>, +and 100<i>l.</i> to be lent to fifteen poor Tradesmen from three years to three +years, changing the Parties every third Year, at the Rate of fifty Shillings +<i>per Annum</i>, the Increase to be distributed to the Almes-poor there.”—The +Donation has all the Air of a rich and sagacious Usurer.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<i>Shakespeare</i> himself did not survive Mr. <i>Combe</i> long, for he dy’d in +the Year 1616, the 53d of his Age. He lies buried on the North Side of the +Chancel in the great Church at <i>Stratford</i>; where a Monument, decent enough +for the Time, is erected to him, and plac’d against the Wall. He is represented +under an Arch in a sitting Posture, a Cushion spread before him, with a Pen in +his Right Hand, and his Left rested on a Scrowl of Paper. The <i>Latin</i> +Distich, which is placed under the Cushion, has been given us by Mr. <i>Pope</i>, +or his Graver, in this Manner.</p> +<span class = "pagenum">xii</span> +<div class = "verse"> +<i>INGENIO </i>Pylium<i>, Genio </i>Socratem<i>, +Arte </i>Maronem<i>,<br> +Terra tegit, Populus mæret, Olympus habet.</i> +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +I confess, I don’t conceive the Difference betwixt <i>Ingeniô</i> and <i>Geniô</i> +in the first Verse. They seem to me intirely <ins class = "correction" title = +"spelling as in original">synonomous</ins> Terms; nor was the <i>Pylian</i> Sage +<i>Nestor</i> celebrated for his Ingenuity, but for an Experience and Judgment +owing to his long Age. <i>Dugdale</i>, in his Antiquities of <i>Warwickshire</i>, +has copied this Distich with a Distinction which Mr. <i>Rowe</i> has follow’d, +and which certainly restores us the true meaning of the Epitaph.</p> + +<div class = "verse"> +<i>JUDICIO Pylium</i>, Genio <i>Socratem</i>, &c. +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +In 1614, the greater part of the Town of <i>Stratford</i> was consumed by Fire; +but our <i>Shakespeare</i>’s House, among some others, escap’d the Flames. This +House was first built by Sir <i>Hugh Clopton</i>, a younger Brother of an +ancient Family in that Neighbourhood, who took their Name from the Manor of +<i>Clopton</i>. Sir <i>Hugh</i> was Sheriff of <i>London</i> in the Reign of +<i>Richard</i> III, and Lord Mayor in the Reign of King <i>Henry</i> VII. To +this Gentleman the Town of <i>Stratford</i> is indebted for the fine Stone-bridge, +consisting of fourteen Arches, which at an extraordinary Expence he built over +the <i>Avon</i>, together with a Cause-way running at the West-end thereof; +<span class = "pagenum">xiii<br>a4</span> +as also for rebuilding the Chapel adjoining to his House, and the Cross-Isle in +the Church there. It is remarkable of him, that, tho’ he liv’d and dy’d a +Batchelor, among the other extensive Charities which he left both to the City of +<i>London</i> and Town of <i>Stratford</i>, he bequeath’d considerable Legacies +for the Marriage of poor Maidens of good Name and Fame both in <i>London</i> and +at <i>Stratford</i>. Notwithstanding which large Donations in his Life, and +Bequests at his Death, as he had purchased the Manor of <i>Clopton</i>, and all +the Estate of the Family, so he left the same again to his Elder Brother’s Son +with a very great Addition: (a Proof, how well Beneficence and Oeconomy may walk +hand in hand in wise Families:) Good part of which Estate is yet in the +Possession of <i>Edward Clopton</i>, Esq; and Sir <i>Hugh Clopton</i>, Knt. +lineally descended from the Elder Brother of the first Sir <i>Hugh</i>: Who +particularly bequeathed to his Nephew, by his Will, his House, by the Name of +his <i>Great-house</i> in <i>Stratford</i>.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +The Estate had now been sold out of the <i>Clopton</i> Family for above a +Century, at the Time when <i>Shakespeare</i> became the Purchaser: who, having +repair’d and modell’d it to his own Mind, chang’d the Name to <i>New-place</i>; +which the Mansion-house, since erected upon the same Spot, at this day retains. +The House and Lands, which attended it, continued in <i>Shakespeare</i>’s +Descendants to the +<span class = "pagenum">xiv</span> +Time of the <i>Restoration</i>: when they were repurchased by the <i>Clopton</i> +Family, and the Mansion now belongs to Sir <i>Hugh Clopton</i>, Knt. To the +Favour of this worthy Gentleman I owe the Knowledge of one Particular, in Honour +of our Poet’s once Dwelling-house, of which, I presume, Mr. <span class = +"extended">Rowe</span> never was appriz’d. When the Civil War raged in +<i>England</i>, and K. <i>Charles</i> the <i>First’s</i> Queen was driven by the +Necessity of Affairs to make a Recess in <i>Warwickshire</i>, She kept her Court +for three Weeks in <i>New-place</i>. We may reasonably suppose it then the best +private House in the Town; and her Majesty preferr’d it to the <i>College</i>, +which was in the Possession of the <i>Combe</i>-Family, who did not so strongly +favour the King’s Party.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +How much our Author employ’d himself in Poetry, after his Retirement from the +Stage, does not so evidently appear: Very few posthumous Sketches of his Pen +have been recover’d to ascertain that Point. We have been told, indeed, in +Print, but not till very lately, That two large Chests full of this Great Man’s +loose Papers and Manuscripts, in the Hands of an ignorant Baker of <i>Warwick</i>, +(who married one of the Descendants from our <i>Shakespeare</i>) were carelesly +scatter’d and thrown about, as Garret-Lumber, and Litter, to the particular +Knowledge of the late Sir <i>William Bishop</i>, till they were all consumed in +the general Fire and Destruction, of that +<span class = "pagenum">xv</span> +Town. I cannot help being a little apt to distrust the Authority of this +Tradition; because as his Wife surviv’d him seven Years, and as his Favourite +Daughter <i>Susanna</i> surviv’d her twenty six Years, ’tis very improbable, +they should suffer such a Treasure to be remov’d, and translated into a remoter +Branch of the Family, without a Scrutiny first made into the Value of it. This, +I say, inclines me to distrust the Authority of the Relation: but, notwithstanding +such an apparent Improbability, if we really lost such a Treasure, by whatever +Fatality or Caprice of Fortune they came into such ignorant and neglectful +Hands, I agree with the <i>Relater</i>, the Misfortune is wholly irreparable.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +To these Particulars, which regard his Person and private Life, some few more +are to be glean’d from Mr. <span class = "extended">Rowe</span>’s Account of his +<i>Life</i> and <i>Writings</i>: +<span class = "sidenote"><i>His Character as a </i>Writer<i>.</i></span> +Let us now take a short View of him in his publick Capacity, as a +<i>Writer</i>: and, from thence, the Transition will be easy to the <i>State</i> +in which his <i>Writings</i> have been handed down to us.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +No Age, perhaps, can produce an Author more various from himself, than +<i>Shakespeare</i> has been universally acknowledg’d to be. The Diversity in +Stile, and other Parts of Composition, so obvious in him, is as variously to be +accounted for. His Education, we find, was at best but begun: and he started +early into a Science from the Force of Genius, +<span class = "pagenum">xvi</span> +unequally assisted by acquir’d Improvements. His Fire, Spirit, and Exuberance of +Imagination gave an Impetuosity to his Pen: His Ideas flow’d from him in a +Stream rapid, but not turbulent; copious, but not ever overbearing its Shores. +The Ease and Sweetness of his Temper might not a little contribute to his +Facility in Writing; as his Employment, as a <i>Player</i>, gave him an +Advantage and Habit of fancying himself the very Character he meant to +delineate. He used the Helps of his Function in forming himself to create and +express that <i>Sublime</i>, which other Actors can only copy, and throw out, in +Action and graceful Attitude. But <i>Nullum fine Veniâ placuit Ingenium</i>, +says <i>Seneca</i>. The Genius, that gives us the greatest Pleasure, sometimes +stands in Need of our Indulgence. Whenever this happens with regard to +<i>Shakespeare</i>, I would willingly impute it to a Vice of <i>his Times</i>. +We see Complaisance enough, in our own Days, paid to a <i>bad Taste</i>. His +<i>Clinches</i>, <i>false Wit</i>, and descending beneath himself, seem to be a +Deference paid to <i>reigning Barbarism</i>. He was a <i>Sampson</i> in +Strength, but he suffer’d some such <i>Dalilah</i> to give him up to the +<i>Philistines</i>.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +As I have mention’d the Sweetness of his Disposition, I am tempted to make a +Reflexion or two on a Sentiment of his, which, I am persuaded, came from the +Heart.</p> +<span class = "pagenum">xvii</span> +<div class = "verse"> +<i>The Man, that hath no Musick in himself,<br> +Nor is not mov’d with Concord of sweet Sounds,<br> +Is fit for Treasons, Stratagems, and Spoils:<br> +The Motions of his Spirit are dull as Night,<br> +And his Affections dark as </i>Erebus<i>:<br> +Let no such Man be trusted.</i>—— +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote"><i>A Lover of </i>Musick<i>.</i></span> +<i>Shakespeare</i> was all Openness, Candour, and Complacence; and had such a +Share of Harmony in his Frame and Temperature, that we have no Reason to doubt, +from a Number of fine Passages, Allusions, Similies, &<i>c.</i> fetch’d from +<i>Musick</i>, but that He was a passionate Lover of it. And to this, perhaps, +we may owe that great Number of <i>Sonnets</i>, which are sprinkled thro’ his +<i>Plays</i>. I have found, that the <ins class = "correction" title = +"apostrophe in original">Stanza’s</ins> sung by the Gravedigger in <i>Hamlet</i>, +are not of <i>Shakespeare</i>’s own Composition, but owe their Original to the +old Earl of <i>Surrey</i>’s Poems. Many other of his Occasional little Songs, I +doubt not, but he purposely copied from his Contemporary Writers; sometimes, out +of Banter; sometimes, to do them Honour. The Manner of their Introduction, and +the Uses to which he has assigned them, will easily determine for which of the +Reasons they are respectively employ’d. In <i>As you like it</i>, there are +several little Copies of Verses on <i>Rosalind</i>, which are said to be the +right <i>Butter-woman’s Rank to Market</i>, and the very <i>false Gallop of +Verses</i>. Dr. <i>Thomas +<span class = "pagenum">xviii</span> +Lodge</i>, a Physician who flourish’d early in Queen <i>Elizabeth</i>’s Reign, +and was a great Writer of the Pastoral Songs and Madrigals, which were so much +the Strain of those Times, composed a whole Volume of Poems in Praise of his +Mistress, whom he calls <i>Rosalinde</i>. I never yet could meet with this +Collection; but whenever I do, I am persuaded, I shall find many of our Author’s +Canzonets on this Subject to be Scraps of the Doctor’s amorous Muse: as, +perhaps, those by <i>Biron</i> too, and the other Lovers in <i>Love’s Labour’s +lost</i>, may prove to be.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +It has been remark’d in the Course of my Notes, that Musick in our Author’s time +had a very different Use from what it has now. At this Time, it is only employ’d +to raise and inflame the Passions; it, then, was apply’d to calm and allay all +kinds of Perturbations. And, agreeable to this Observation, throughout all +<i>Shakespeare</i>’s Plays, where Musick is either actually used, or its Powers +describ’d, it is chiefly said to be for these Ends. His <i>Twelfth-Night</i>, +particularly, begins with a fine Reflexion that admirably marks its soothing +Properties.</p> + +<div class = "verse"> +<i>That Strain again;—It had a dying Fall.<br> +Oh, it came o’er my Ear like the sweet South,<br> +That breathes upon a Bank of Violets,<br> +Stealing and giving Odour!</i> +</div> + +<span class = "pagenum">xix</span> +<p class = "preface"> +This <i>Similitude</i> is remarkable not only for the Beauty of the Image that +it presents, but likewise for the Exactness to the Thing compared. This is a way +of Teaching peculiar to the Poets; that, when they would describe the Nature of +any thing, they do it not by a direct Enumeration of its Attributes or +Qualities, but by bringing something into Comparison, and describing those +Qualities of it that are of the Kind with those in the Thing compared. So, here +for instance, the Poet willing to instruct in the Properties of Musick, in which +the same Strains have a Power to excite Pleasure, or Pain, according to that +State of Mind the Hearer is then in, does it by presenting the Image of a sweet +South Wind blowing o’er a Violet-bank; which wafts away the Odour of the +Violets, and at the same time communicates to it its own Sweetness: by This +insinuating, that affecting Musick, tho’ it takes away the natural sweet +Tranquillity of the Mind, yet, at the same time, communicates a Pleasure the +Mind felt not before. This Knowledge, of the same Objects being capable of +raising two contrary Affections, is a Proof of no ordinary Progress in the Study +of human Nature. +<span class = "sidenote">Milton<i> an Imitator of him.</i></span> +The general +Beauties of those two Poems of <span class = "extended">Milton</span>, intitled, +<i>L’Allegro</i> and <i>Il Pensoroso</i>, are obvious to all Readers, because +the Descriptions are the most poetical in the World; yet there is a peculiar +Beauty in those two excellent +<span class = "pagenum">xx</span> +Pieces, that will much enhance the Value of them to the more capable Readers; +which has never, I think, been observ’d. The Images, in each Poem, which he +raises to excite Mirth and Melancholy, are exactly the same, only shewn in +different Attitudes. Had a Writer, less acquainted with Nature, given us two +Poems on these Subjects, he would have been sure to have sought out the most +contrary Images to raise these contrary Passions. And, particularly, as +<i>Shakespeare</i>, in the Passage I am now commenting, speaks of these +different Effects in Musick; so <i>Milton</i> has brought it into each Poem as +the Exciter of each Affection: and lest we should mistake him, as meaning that +different Airs had this different Power, (which every Fidler is proud to have +you understand,) He gives the Image of those self-same Strains that <i>Orpheus</i> +used to regain <i>Eurydice</i>, as proper both to excite Mirth and Melancholy. +But <i>Milton</i> most industriously copied the Conduct of our <i>Shakespeare</i>, +in Passages that shew’d an intimate Acquaintance with Nature and Science.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote">Shakespeare’s <i>Knowledge of Nature.</i></span> +I have not thought it out of my Province, whenever Occasion offer’d, to take +notice of some of our Poet’s grand Touches of Nature: Some, that do not appear +superficially such; but in which he seems the most deeply instructed; and to +which, no doubt, he has so much ow’d that happy Preservation of his +<span class = "pagenum">xxi</span> +<i>Characters</i>, for which he is justly celebrated. If he was not acquainted +with the Rule as deliver’d by <i>Horace</i>, his own admirable Genius pierc’d +into the Necessity of such a Rule.</p> + +<div class = "verse"> +——<i>Servetur ad imum<br> +Qualis ab incoepto processerit, & sibi constet.</i> +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +For what can be more ridiculous, than, in our modern Writers, to make a +debauch’d young Man, immers’d in all the Vices of his Age and Time, in a few +hours take up, confine himself in the way of Honour to one Woman, and moralize +in good earnest on the Follies of his past Behaviour? Nor can, that great +Examplar of <i>Comic</i> Writing, <i>Terence</i> be altogether excused in this +Regard; who, in his <i>Adelphi</i>, has left <i>Demea</i> in the last Scenes so +unlike himself: whom, as <i>Shakespeare</i> expresses it, <i>he has turn’d with +the seamy Side of his Wit outward</i>. This Conduct, as Errors are more readily +imitated than Perfections, <i>Beaumont</i> and <i>Fletcher</i> seem to have +follow’d in a Character in their <i>Scornful Lady</i>. It may be objected, +perhaps, by some who do not go to the Bottom of our Poet’s Conduct, that he has +likewise transgress’d against the Rule himself, by making Prince <i>Harry</i> at +once, upon coming to the Crown, throw off his former Dissoluteness, and take up +the Practice of a sober Morality and all the kingly Virtues. But this would be a +mistaken Objection. The Prince’s Reformation is not +<span class = "pagenum">xxii</span> +so sudden, as not to be prepar’d and expected by the Audience. He gives, indeed, +a Loose to Vanity, and a light unweigh’d Behaviour, when he is trifling among +his dissolute Companions; but the Sparks of innate Honour and true Nobleness +break from him upon every proper Occasion, where we would hope to see him awake +to Sentiments suiting his Birth and Dignity. And our Poet has so well, and +artfully, guarded his Character from the Suspicions of habitual and unreformable +Profligateness; that even from the first shewing him upon the Stage, in the +first Part of <i>Henry</i> IV, when he made him consent to join with <i>Falstaffe</i> +in a Robbery on the Highway, he has taken care not to carry him off the Scene, +without an Intimation that he knows them all, and their unyok’d Humour; and +that, like the Sun, he will permit them only for a while to obscure and cloud +his Brightness; then break thro’ the Mist, when he pleases to be himself again; +that his Lustre, when wanted, may be the more wonder’d at.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Another of <i>Shakespeare</i>’s grand Touches of Nature, and which lies still +deeper from the Ken of common Observation, has been taken notice of in a Note +upon <i>The Tempest</i>; where <i>Prospero</i> at once interrupts the Masque of +<i>Spirits</i>, and starts into a sudden Passion and Disorder of Mind. As the +latent Cause of his Emotion is there fully inquir’d into, I shall no farther +dwell upon it here.</p> +<span class = "pagenum">xxiii<br>b</span> + +<p class = "preface"> +Such a Conduct in a Poet (as <i>Shakespeare</i> has manifested on many like +Occasions;) where the Turn of <i>Action</i> arises from Reflexions of his +<i>Characters</i>, where the Reason of it is not express’d in Words, but drawn +from the inmost Resources of Nature, shews him truly capable of that Art, which +is more in Rule than Practice: <i>Ars est celare Artem</i>. ’Tis the Foible of +your worser Poets to make a Parade and Ostentation of that little Science they +have; and to throw it out in the most ambitious Colours. And whenever a Writer +of this Class shall attempt to copy these artful Concealments of our Author, and +shall either think them easy, or practised by a Writer for his Ease, he will +soon be convinced of his Mistake by the Difficulty of reaching the Imitation of +them.</p> + +<div class = "verse"> +<i>Speret idem, sudet multùm, <ins class = "correction" +title = "'-q;' = '-que'">frustráq;</ins> laboret,<br> +Ausus idem:</i>—— +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +Another grand Touch of Nature in our Author, (not less difficult to imitate, +tho’ more obvious to the Remark of a common Reader) is, when he brings down at +once any <i>Character</i> from the Ferment and Height of Passion, makes him +correct himself for the unruly Disposition, and fall into Reflexions of a sober +and moral Tenour. An exquisite fine Instance of this Kind occurs in <i>Lear</i>, +where that old King, hasty and intemperate in his Passions, coming to his Son +and Daughter +<span class = "pagenum">xxiv</span> +<i>Cornwall</i>, is told by the Earl of <i>Gloucester</i> that they are not to +be spoken with: and thereupon throws himself into a Rage, supposing the Excuse +of Sickness and Weariness in them to be a purpos’d Contempt: <i>Gloucester</i> +begs him to think of the fiery and unremoveable Quality of the Duke: and This, +which was design’d to qualify his Passion, serves to exaggerate the Transports +of it.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +As the Conduct of Prince <i>Henry</i> in the first Instance, the secret and +mental Reflexions in the Case of <i>Prospero</i>, and the instant Detour of +<i>Lear</i> from the Violence of Rage to a Temper of Reasoning, do so much +Honour to that <ins class = "correction" title = "text reads 'surpizing'">surprizing</ins> +Knowledge of human Nature, which is certainly our Author’s Masterpiece, I +thought, they could not be set in too good a Light. Indeed, to point out, and +exclaim upon, all the Beauties of <i>Shakespeare</i>, as they come singly in +Review, would be as insipid, as endless; as tedious, as unnecessary: But the +Explanation of those Beauties, that are less obvious to common Readers, and +whose Illustration depends on the Rules of just Criticism, and an exact +Knowledge of human Life, should deservedly have a Share in a general Critic upon +the Author.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +I shall dismiss the Examination into these his latent Beauties, when I have made +a short Comment upon a remarkable Passage from <i>Julius Cæsar</i>, which is +inexpressibly fine in +<span class = "pagenum">xxv<br>b2</span> +its self, +<span class = "sidenote"><i>Mr. </i>Addison<i> and </i>He<i> compared, on a +similar Topick.</i></span> +and greatly discovers our Author’s Knowledge and Researches into Nature.</p> + +<div class = "verse"> +<i>Between the acting of a dreadful Thing,<br> +And the first Motion, all the </i>Interim<i> is<br> +Like a Phantasma, or a hideous Dream:<br> +The Genius, and the mortal Instruments<br> +Are then in Council; and the State of Man,<br> +Like to a little Kingdom, suffers then<br> +The Nature of an Insurrection.</i> +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +That nice Critick <i>Dionysius</i> of <i>Halicarnassus</i> confesses, that he +could not find those great Strokes, which he calls the <i>terrible Graces</i>, +in any of the Historians, which he frequently met with in <i>Homer</i>. I +believe, the Success would be the same likewise, if we sought for them in any +other of <i>our</i> Authors besides our <i>British</i> +<span class = "extended">Homer</span>, +<i>Shakespeare</i>. This Description of the Condition of Conspirators has a Pomp +and Terror in it, that perfectly astonishes. Our excellent Mr. <i>Addison</i>, +whose Modesty made him sometimes diffident in his own Genius, but whose +exquisite Judgment always led him to the safest Guides, as we may see by those +many fine Strokes in his <i>Cato</i> borrow’d from the <i>Philippics</i> of +<i>Cicero</i>, has paraphrased this fine Description; but we are no longer to +expect those <i>terrible Graces</i>, which he could not hinder from evaporating +in the Transfusion.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">xxvi</span> +<div class = "verse"> +<i>O think, what anxious Moments pass between<br> +The Birth of Plots, and their last fatal Periods.<br> +Oh, ’tis a dreadful Interval of Time,<br> +Fill’d up with Horror all, and big with Death.</i> +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +I shall observe two Things on this fine Imitation: first, that the Subjects of +these two Conspiracies being so very different, (the Fortunes of <i>Cæsar</i> +and the <i>Roman</i> Empire being concern’d in the First; and That of only a few +Auxiliary Troops, in the other;) Mr. <i>Addison</i> could not with Propriety +bring in that magnificent Circumstance, which gives the terrible Grace to +<i>Shakespeare</i>’s Description.</p> + +<div class = "verse"> +<i>The Genius and the mortal Instruments<br> +Are then in Council.</i>—— +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +For Kingdoms, in the poetical Theology, besides their good, have their evil +<i>Genius</i>’s likewise: represented here with the most daring Stretch of +Fancy, as fitting in Council with the Conspirators, whom he calls the <i>mortal +Instruments</i>. But this Would have been too great an Apparatus to the Rape, +and Desertion, of <i>Syphax</i>, and <i>Sempronius</i>. Secondly, The other +Thing very observable is, that Mr. <i>Addison</i> was so warm’d and affected +with the Fire of <i>Shakespeare</i>’s Description; that, instead of copying his +Author’s Sentiments, he has, before he was aware, given us only the Image of his +own Impressions on the reading his great Original. For,</p> +<span class = "pagenum">xxvii<br>b3</span> +<div class = "verse"> +<i>Oh, ’tis a dreadful Interval of Time,<br> +Fill’d up with Horror all, and big with Death;</i> +</div> +<p class = "preface"> +are but the Affections raised by such forcible Images as these;</p> +<div class = "verse"> +——<i>All the </i>Int’rim<i> is<br> +Like a Phantasma, or a hideous Dream</i>.<br> +——<i>the State of Man,<br> +Like to a little Kingdom, suffers then<br> +The Nature of an Insurrection.</i> +</div> +<p class = "preface"> +Comparing the Mind of a Conspirator to an Anarchy, is just and beautiful; but +the <i>Interim</i> to a <i>hideous Dream</i> has something in it so wonderfully +natural, and lays the human Soul so open, that one cannot but be surpriz’d, that +any Poet, who had not himself been, some time or other, engaged in a Conspiracy, +could ever have given such Force of Colouring to Truth and Nature.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote"><i>The Question on </i>Shakespeare<i>’s Learning +handled.</i></span> +It has been allow’d on all hands, far our Author was indebted to <i>Nature</i>; +it is not so well agreed, how much he ow’d to <i>Languages</i> and acquir’d +<i>Learning</i>. The Decisions on this Subject were certainly set on Foot by the +Hint from <i>Ben Jonson</i>, that he had small <i>Latin</i> and less <i>Greek</i>: +And from this Tradition, as it were, Mr. <i>Rowe</i> has thought fit peremptorily +to declare, that, “It is without Controversy, he had no Knowledge of the +Writings of the ancient Poets, for that in his Works we find no Traces +of +<span class = "pagenum">xxviii</span> +any thing which looks like an Imitation of the Ancients. For the Delicacy of his +Taste (<i>continues He</i>,) and the natural Bent of his own great Genius +(equal, if not superior, to some of the Best of theirs;) would certainly have +led him to read and study them with so much Pleasure, that some of their fine +Images would naturally have insinuated themselves into, and been mix’d with, his +own Writings: so that his not copying, at least, something from them, may be an +Argument of his never having read them.” I shall leave it to the Determination +of my Learned Readers, from the numerous Passages, which I have occasionally +quoted in my Notes, in which our Poet seems closely to have imitated the +Classics, whether Mr. <i>Rowe</i>’s Assertion be so absolutely to be depended +on. The Result of the Controversy must certainly, either way, terminate to our +Author’s Honour: how happily he could imitate them, if that Point be allow’d; or +how gloriously he could think like them, without owing any thing to Imitation.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Tho’ I should be very unwilling to allow <i>Shakespeare</i> so poor a Scholar, +as Many have labour’d to represent him, yet I shall be very cautious of +declaring too positively on the other side of the Question: that is, with regard +to my Opinion of his Knowledge in the dead Languages. And therefore the +Passages, that +<span class = "pagenum">xxix<br>b4</span> I occasionally quote from the +<i>Classics</i>, shall not be urged as Proofs that he knowingly imitated those +Originals; but brought to shew how happily he has express’d himself upon the +same Topicks. A very learned Critick of our own Nation has declar’d, that a +Sameness of Thought and Sameness of Expression too, in Two Writers of a +different Age, can hardly happen, without a violent Suspicion of the Latter +copying from his Predecessor. I shall not therefore run any great Risque of a +Censure, tho’ I should venture to hint, that the Resemblance, in Thought and +Expression, of our Author and an Ancient (which we should allow to be Imitation +in One, whose Learning was not question’d) may sometimes take its Rise from +Strength of Memory, and those Impressions which he ow’d to the School. And if we +may allow a Possibility of This, considering that, when he quitted the School, +he gave into his Father’s Profession and way of Living, and had, ’tis likely, +but a slender Library of Classical Learning; and considering what a Number of +Translations, Romances, and Legends, started about his Time, and a little +before; (most of which,’tis very evident, he read;) I think, it may easily be +reconcil’d, why he rather schemed his <i>Plots</i> and <i>Charaters</i> from +these more latter Informations, than went back to those Fountains, for which he +might <span class = "pagenum">xxx</span> +entertain a sincere Veneration, but to which he could not have so ready a +Recourse.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +In touching on another Part of his Learning, as it related to the Knowledge of +<i>History</i> and <i>Books</i>, I shall advance something, that, at first +sight, will very much wear the Appearance of a Paradox. For I shall find it no +hard Matter to prove, that from the grossest Blunders in History, we are not to +infer his real Ignorance of it: Nor from a greater Use of <i>Latin</i> Words, +than ever any other <i>English</i> Author used, must we infer his Knowledge of +that Language.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +A Reader of Taste may easily observe, that tho’ <i>Shakespeare</i>, almost in +every Scene of his historical Plays, commits the grossest Offences against +Chronology, History, and Antient Politicks; yet This was not thro’ Ignorance, as +is generally supposed, but thro’ the too powerful Blaze of his Imagination; +which, when once raised, made all acquired Knowledge vanish and disappear before +it. For Instance, in his <i>Timon</i>, he turns <i>Athens</i>, which was a +perfect Democracy, into an Aristocracy; while he ridiculously gives a Senator +the Power of banishing <i>Alcibiades</i>. On the contrary, in <i>Coriolanus</i>, +he makes <i>Rome</i>, which at that time was a perfect Aristocracy, a Democracy +full as ridiculously, by making the People choose <i>Coriolanus</i> Consul: +Whereas, in Fact, it was not till the Time of <i>Manlius</i> +<span class = "pagenum">xxxi</span> +<i>Torquatus</i>, that the People had a Right of choosing one Consul. But this +Licence in him, as I have said, must not be imputed to Ignorance: since as often +we may find him, when Occasion serves, reasoning up to the Truth of History; and +throwing out Sentiments as justly adapted to the Circumstances of his Subject, +as to the Dignity of his Characters, or Dictates of Nature in general.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Then, to come to his Knowledge of the <i>Latin</i> Tongue, ’tis certain, there +is a surprising Effusion of <i>Latin</i> Words made <i>English</i>, far more +than in any one <i>English</i> Author I have seen; but we must be cautious to +imagine, this was of his own doing. For the <i>English</i> Tongue, in his Age, +began extremely to suffer by an Inundation of <i>Latin</i>; and to be overlaid, +as it were, by its Nurse, when it had just began to speak by her before-prudent +Care and Assistance. And this, to be sure, was occasion’d by the Pedantry of +those two Monarchs, <i>Elizabeth</i> and <i>James</i>, Both great <i>Latinists</i>. +For it is not to be wonder’d at, if both the Court and Schools, equal Flatterers +of Power, should adapt themselves to the Royal Taste. This, then, was the +Condition of the <i>English</i> Tongue when <i>Shakespeare</i> took it up: like +a Beggar in a rich Wardrobe. He found the pure native <i>English</i> too cold +and poor to second the Heat and Abundance of his Imagination: and therefore was +forc’d +<span class = "pagenum">xxxii</span> +to dress it up in the Robes, he saw provided for it: rich in themselves, but +ill-shaped; cut out to an air of Magnificence, but disproportion’d and +cumbersome. To the Costliness of Ornament, he added all the Graces and Decorum +of it. It may be said, this did not require, or discover a Knowledge of the +<i>Latin</i>. To the first, I think, it did not; to the second, it is so far +from discovering it, that, I think, it discovers the contrary. To make This more +obvious by a modern Instance: The great <span class = "extended">Milton</span> +likewise labour’d under the like Inconvenience; when he first set upon adorning +his own Tongue, he likewise animated and enrich’d it with the <i>Latin</i>, but +from his own Stock: and so, rather by bringing in the Phrases, than the Words: +And This was natural; and will, I believe, always be the Case in the same +Circumstances. His Language, especially his Prose, is full of <i>Latin</i> Words +indeed, but much fuller of <i>Latin</i> Phrases: and his Mastery in the Tongue +made this unavoidable. On the contrary, <i>Shakespeare</i>, who, perhaps, was +not so intimately vers’d in the <i>Language</i>, abounds in the Words of it, but +has few or none of its Phrases: Nor, indeed, if what I affirm be true, could He. +This I take to be the truest <i>Criterion</i> to determine this long agitated +Question.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +It may be mention’d, tho’ no certain Conclusion can be drawn from it, as a +probable +<span class = "pagenum">xxxiii</span> +Argument of his having read the Antients; that He perpetually expresses the +Genius of <i>Homer</i>, and other great Poets of the Old World, in animating all +the Parts of his Descriptions; and, by bold and breathing Metaphors and Images, +giving the Properties of Life and Action to inanimate Things. He is a Copy too +of those <i>Greek</i> Masters in the infinite use of <i>compound</i> and +<i>de-compound Epithets</i>. I will not, indeed, aver, but that One with +<i>Shakespeare</i>’s exquisite Genius and Observation might have traced these +glaring Characteristics of Antiquity by reading <i>Homer</i> in <i>Chapman</i>’s +Version.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote">B. Jonson<i> and </i>Shakespeare<i> compar’d.</i></span> +An additional Word or two naturally falls in here upon the Genius of our Author, +as compared with that of <i>Jonson</i> his Contemporary. They are confessedly +the greatest Writers our Nation could ever boast of in the <i>Drama</i>. The +first, we say, owed all to his prodigious natural Genius; and the other a great +deal to his Art and Learning. This, if attended to, will explain a very +remarkable Appearance in their Writings. Besides those wonderful Masterpieces of +Art and Genius, which each has given Us; They are the Authors of other Works +very unworthy of them: But with this Difference; that in <i>Jonson</i>’s bad +Pieces we don’t discover one single Trace of the Author of the <i>Fox</i> and +<i>Alchemist</i>: but in the wild extravagant Notes of <i>Shakespeare</i>, you +every now and then encounter Strains +<span class = "pagenum">xxxiv</span> +that recognize the divine Composer. This Difference may be thus accounted for. +<i>Jonson</i>, as we said before, owing all his Excellence to his Art, by which +he sometimes strain’d himself to an uncommon Pitch, when at other times he +unbent and play’d with his Subject, having nothing then to support him, it is no +wonder he wrote so far beneath himself. But <i>Sbakespeare</i>, indebted more +largely to Nature, than the Other to acquired Talents, in his most negligent +Hours could never so totally divest himself of his Genius, but that it would +frequently break out with astonishing Force and Splendor.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote"><i>His Reputation under Disadvantages.</i></span> +As I have never propos’d to dilate farther on the Character of my Author, than +was necessary to explain the Nature and Use of this Edition, I shall proceed to +consider him as a Genius in Possession of an Everlasting Name. And how great +that Merit must be, which could gain it against all the Disadvantages of the +horrid Condition in which he has hitherto appear’d! Had <i>Homer</i>, or any +other admir’d Author, first started into Publick so, maim’d and deform’d, we +cannot determine whether they had not sunk for ever under the Ignominy of such +an ill Appearance. The mangled Condition of <i>Shakespeare</i> has been +acknowledg’d by Mr. <i>Rowe</i>, who publish’d him indeed, but neither corrected +his Text, nor collated the old Copies. This Gentleman had Abilities, and a +sufficient Knowledge of +<span class = "pagenum">xxxv</span> +his Author, had but his Industry been equal to his Talents. The same mangled +Condition has been acknowledg’d too by Mr. <i>Pope</i>, who publish’d him +likewise, pretended to have collated the old Copies, and yet seldom has +corrected the Text but to its Injury. I congratulate with the <i>Manes</i> of +our Poet, that this Gentleman has been sparing in <i>indulging his private +Sense</i>; for He, who tampers with an Author whom he does not understand, must +do it at the Expence of his Subject. I have made it evident throughout my +Remarks, that he has frequently inflicted a Wound where he intended a Cure. He +has acted with regard to our Author, as an Editor, +whom <span class = "extended">Lipsius</span> +mentions, did with regard to <span class = "extended">Martial</span>; <i>Inventus +est nescio quis </i>Popa<i>, qui non </i>vitia<i> ejus, sed </i>ipsum<i>, +excîdit.</i> He has attack’d him like an unhandy <i>Slaughterman</i>; and not +lopp’d off the <i>Errors</i>, but the <i>Poet</i>.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote"><i>Praise sometimes an Injury.</i></span> +When this is found to be the Fact, how absurd must appear the Praises of such an +Editor? It seems a moot Point, whether Mr. <i>Pope</i> has done most Injury to +<i>Shakespeare</i> as his Editor and Encomiast; or Mr. <i>Rymer</i> done him +Service as his Rival and Censurer. Were it every where the true Text, which That +Editor in his late pompous Edition gave us, the Poet deserv’d not the large +Encomiums bestow’d by him: nor, in that Case, is <i>Rymer</i>’s Censure of the +Barbarity of his Thoughts, +<span class = "pagenum">xxxvi</span> +and the Impropriety of his Expressions, groundless. They have Both shewn +themselves in an equal <i>Impuissance</i> of suspecting or amending the +corrupted Passages: and tho’ it be neither Prudence to censure, or commend, what +one does not understand; yet if a Man must do one when he plays the Critick, the +latter is the more ridiculous Office. And by That <i>Shakespeare</i> suffers +most. For the natural Veneration, which we have for him, makes us apt to swallow +whatever is given us as <i>his</i>, and let off with Encomiums; and hence we +quit all Suspicions of Depravity: On the contrary, the Censure of so divine an +Author sets us upon his Defence; and this produces an exact Scrutiny and +Examination, which ends in finding out and discriminating the true from the +spurious.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +It is not with any secret Pleasure, that I so frequently animadvert on Mr. +<i>Pope</i> as a Critick; but there are Provocations, which a Man can never +quite forget. His Libels have been thrown out with so much Inveteracy, that, not +to dispute whether they <i>should</i> come from a <i>Christian</i>, they leave +it a Question whether they <i>could</i> come from a <i>Man</i>. I should be loth +to doubt, as <i>Quintus Serenus</i> did in a like Case,</p> +<div class = "verse"> +<i>Sive homo, seu similis turpissima bestia nobis,<br> +Vulnera dente dedit.</i> +</div> +<p class = "preface"> +The Indignation, perhaps, for being represented a <i>Blockhead</i>, may be as +strong in Us as +<span class = "pagenum">xxxvii</span> +it is in the Ladies for a Reflexion on their <i>Beauties</i>. It is certain, I +am indebted to Him for some <i>flagrant Civilities</i>; and I shall willingly +devote a part of my Life to the honest Endeavour of quitting Scores: with this +Exception however, that I will not return those Civilities in his <i>peculiar</i> +Strain, but confine myself, at lead, to the Limits of <i>common Decency</i>. I +shall ever think it better to want <i>Wit</i>, than to want <i>Humanity</i>: and +impartial Posterity may, perhaps, be of my Opinion.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote"><ins class = "correction" title = +"exact text as in original"><i>The old Editions faulty, whence.</i></ins></span> +But, to return to my Subject; which now calls upon me to inquire into those +Causes, to which the Depravations of my Author originally may be assign’d. We +are to consider him as a Writer, of whom no authentic Manuscript was extant; as +a Writer, whose Pieces were dispersedly perform’d on the several <i>Stages</i> +then in Being. And it was the Custom of those Days for the Poets to take a Price +of the <i>Players</i> for the Pieces They from time to time furnish’d; and +thereupon it was suppos’d, they had no farther Right to print them without the +Consent of the <i>Players</i>. As it was the Interest of the <i>Companies</i> to +keep their Plays unpublish’d, when any one succeeded, there was a Contest +betwixt the Curiosity of the Town, who demanded to see it in Print, and the +Policy of the <i>Stagers</i>, who wish’d to secrete it within their own Walls. +Hence, many Pieces were taken down in Short-hand, and imperfectly copied +<span class = "pagenum">xxxviii</span> +by Ear, from a <i>Representation</i>: Others were printed from piece-meal Parts, +surreptitiously obtain’d from the Theatres, uncorrect, and without the Poet’s +Knowledge. To some of these Causes we owe the train of Blemishes, that deform +those Pieces which stole singly into the World in our Author’s Life-time.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +There are still other Reasons, which may be suppos’d to have affected the whole +Set. When the <i>Players</i> took upon them to publish his Works intire, every +Theatre was ransack’d to supply the Copy; and <i>Parts</i> collected which had +gone thro’ as many Changes as Performers, either from Mutilations or Additions +made to them. Hence we derive many Chasms and Incoherences in the Sense and +Matter. Scenes were frequently transposed, and shuffled out of their true Place, +to humour the Caprice or suppos’d Convenience of some particular Actor. Hence +much Confusion and Impropriety has attended, and embarras’d, the Business and +Fable. For there ever have been, and ever will be in Playhouses, a Set of +assuming Directors, who know better than the Poet himself the Connexion and +Dependance of his Scenes; where Matter is defective, or Superfluities to be +retrench’d; Persons, that have the Fountain of <i>Inspiration</i> as peremptorily +in them, as Kings have That of <i>Honour</i>. To these obvious Causes of +Corruption it must be added, that our Author has lain under the Disadvantage +<span class = "pagenum">xxxix<br>c</span> +of having his Errors propagated and multiplied by Time: because, for near a +Century; his Works were republish’d from the faulty Copies without the +assistance of any intelligent Editor: which has been the Case likewise of many a +<i>Classic</i> Writer.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote"><i>The Editor’s Drift and Method.</i></span> +The Nature of any Distemper once found has generally been the immediate Step to +a Cure. <i>Shakespeare</i>’s Case has in a great Measure resembled That of a +corrupt <i>Classic</i>; and, consequently, the Method of Cure was likewise to +bear a Resemblance. By what Means, and with what Success, this Cure has been +effected on ancient Writers, is too well known, and needs no formal Illustration. +The Reputation consequent on Tasks of that Nature invited me to attempt the +Method here; with this View, the Hopes of restoring to the Publick their +greatest Poet in his Original Purity: after having so long lain in a Condition +that was a Disgrace to common Sense. To this End I have ventur’d on a Labour, +that is the first Assay of the kind on any modern Author whatsoever. For the +late Edition of <i>Milton</i> by the Learned +<span class = "sidenote"><i>Difference betwixt this Edition and Dr. </i>Bentley<i>’s +</i>Milton<i>.</i></span> +Dr. <i>Bentley</i> is, in the main, a Performance of another Species. It is +plain, it was the Intention of that Great Man rather to Correct and pare off the +Excrescencies of the <i>Paradise Lost</i>, in the manner that <i>Tucca</i> and +<i>Varius</i> were employ’d to criticize the <i>Æneis</i> of <i>Virgil</i>, than +to restore corrupted Passages. Hence, therefore, +<span class = "pagenum">xl</span> +may be seen either the Iniquity or Ignorance of his Censurers, who, from some +Expressions, would make us believe, the <i>Doctor</i> every where gives us his +Corrections as the Original Text of the Author; whereas the chief Turn of his +Criticism is plainly to shew the World, that if <i>Milton</i> did not write as +He would have him, he ought to have wrote so.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +I thought proper to premise this Observation to the Readers, as it will shew +that the Critic on <i>Shakespeare</i> is of a quite different Kind. His genuine +Text is religiously adher’d to, and the numerous Faults and Blemishes, purely +his own, are left as they were found. Nothing is alter’d, but what by the +clearest Reasoning can be proved a Corruption of the true Text; and the +Alteration, a real Restoration of the genuine Reading. Nay, so strictly have I +strove to give the true Reading, tho’ sometimes not to the Advantage of my +Author, that I have been ridiculously ridicul’d for it by Those, who either were +iniquitously for turning every thing to my Disadvantage; or else were totally +ignorant of the true Duty of an Editor.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +The Science of Criticism, as far as it affects an Editor, seems to be reduced to +these three Classes; the Emendation of corrupt Passages; the Explanation of +obscure and difficult ones; and an Inquiry into the Beauties and Defects of +Composition. This Work +<span class = "pagenum">xli<br>c2</span> +is principally confin’d to the two former Parts: tho’ there are some Specimens +interspers’d of the latter Kind, as several of the Emendations were best +supported, and several of the Difficulties best explain’d, by taking notice of +the Beauties and Defects of the Composition peculiar to this Immortal Poet. But +This was but occasional, and for the sake only of perfecting the two other +Parts, which were the proper Objects of the Editor’s Labour. The third lies open +for every willing Undertaker: and I shall be pleas’d to see it the Employment of +a masterly Pen.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +It must necessarily happen, as I have formerly observ’d, that where the +Assistance of Manuscripts is wanting to set an Author’s Meaning right, and +rescue him from those Errors which have been transmitted down thro’ a Series of +incorrect Editions, and a long Intervention of Time, many Passages must be +desperate, and past a Cure; and their true Sense irretrievable either to Care or +the Sagacity of Conjecture. But is there any Reason therefore to say, That +because All cannot be retriev’d, All ought to be left desperate? We should shew +very little Honesty, or Wisdom, to play the Tyrants with an Author’s Text; to +raze, alter, innovate, and overturn, at all Adventures, and to the utter +Detriment of his Sense and Meaning: But to be so very reserved and cautious, as +to interpose no +<span class = "pagenum">xlii</span> +Relief or Conjecture, where it manifestly labours and cries out for Assistance, +seems, on the other hand, an indolent Absurdity.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +But because the Art of Criticism, both by Those who cannot form a true Judgment +of its Effects, nor can penetrate into its Causes, <ins class = "correction" +title = "opening '(' invisible in original">(which</ins> takes in a great Number +besides the Ladies;) is esteem’d only an arbitrary capricious Tyranny exercis’d +on Books; I think proper to subjoin a Word or two about those Rules on which I +have proceeded, and by which I have regulated myself in this Edition. By This, I +flatter myself, it will appear, my Emendations are so far from being arbitrary +or capricious, that They are establish’d with a very high Degree of moral +Certainty.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +As there are very few Pages in <i>Shakespeare,</i> upon which some Suspicions of +Depravity do not reasonably arise; I have thought it my Duty, in the first +place, by a diligent and laborious Collation to take in the Assistances of all +the older Copies.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +In his <i>Historical Plays</i>, whenever our <i>English</i> Chronicles, and in +his Tragedies when <i>Greek</i> or <i>Roman</i> Story, could give any Light; no +Pains have been omitted to set Passages right by comparing my Author with his +Originals: for, as I have frequently observed, he was a close and accurate +Copier where-ever his <i>Fable</i> was founded on <i>History</i>.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">xliii<br>c3</span> +<p class = "preface"> +Where-ever the Author’s Sense is clear and discoverable, (tho’, perchance, low +and trivial;) I have not by any Innovation tamper’d with his Text; out of an +Ostentation of endeavouring to make him speak better than the Old Copies have +done.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Where, thro’ all the former Editions, a Passage has labour’d under flat Nonsense +and invincible Darkness, if, by the Addition or Alteration of a Letter or two, I +have restored to Him both Sense and Sentiment, such Corrections, I am persuaded, +will need no Indulgence.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +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. <i>Cette voïe d’interpreter un Autheur par lui-même est plus sure +que tous les Commentaires</i>, says a very learned <i>French</i> Critick.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +As to my <i>Notes</i>, (from which the common and learned Readers of our Author, +I hope, will derive some Pleasure;) I have endeavour’d to give them a Variety in +some Proportion to their Number. Where-ever I have ventur’d at an Emendation, a +<i>Note</i> is constantly subjoin’d to justify and assert the Reason of it. +Where I only offer a Conjecture, and do not disturb the Text, I fairly set forth +my Grounds for such Conjecture, and submit it +<span class = "pagenum">xliv</span> +to Judgment. Some Remarks are spent in explaining Passages, Where the Wit or +Satire depends on an obscure Point of History: Others, where Allusions are to +Divinity, Philosophy, or other Branches of Science. Some are added to shew, +where there is a Suspicion of our Author having borrowed from the Antients: +Others, to shew where he is rallying his Contemporaries; or where He himself is +rallied by them. And some are necessarily thrown in, to explain an obscure and +obsolete <i>Term</i>, <i>Phrase</i>, or <i>Idea</i>. I once intended to have +added a complete and copious <i>Glossary</i>; but as I have been importun’d, and +am prepar’d, to give a correct Edition of our Author’s +<span class = "extended">Poems</span>, +(in which many Terms occur that are not to be met with in his <i>Plays</i>,) I +thought a <i>Glossary</i> to all <i>Shakespeare</i>’s Works more proper to +attend that Volume.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +In reforming an infinite Number of Passages in the <i>Pointing</i>, where the +Sense was before quite lost, I have frequently subjoin’d Notes to shew the +<i>deprav’d</i>, and to prove the <i>reform’d</i>, Pointing: a Part of Labour in +this Work which I could very willingly have spared myself. May it not be +objected, why then have you burthen’d us with these Notes? The Answer is +obvious, and, if I mistake not, very material. Without such Notes, these +Passages in subsequent Editions would be liable, thro’ the Ignorance of Printers +and Correctors, to fall into the old Confusion: Whereas, +<span class = "pagenum">xlv<br>c4</span> +a Note on every one hinders all possible Return to Depravity; and for ever +secures them in a State of Purity and Integrity not to be lost or forfeited.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Again, as some Notes have been necessary to point out the Detection of the +corrupted Text, and establish the Reiteration of the genuine Readings; some +others have been as necessary for the Explanation of Passages obscure and +difficult. +<span class = "sidenote"><i>Causes of Obscurities in </i>Shakespeare<i>.</i></span> +To understand the Necessity and Use of this Part of my Task, some Particulars of +my Author’s Character are previously to be explain’d. There are <i>Obscurities</i> +in him, which are common to him with all Poets of the same Species; there are +Others, the Issue of the Times he liv’d in; and there are Others, again, +peculiar to himself. The Nature of Comic Poetry being entirely satyrical, it +busies itself more in exposing what we call Caprice and Humour, than Vices +cognizable to the Laws. The <i>English</i>, from the Happiness of a free +Constitution, and a Turn of Mind peculiarly speculative and inquisitive, are +observ’d to produce more <i>Humourists</i> and a greater Variety of Original +<i>Characters</i>, than any other People whatsoever: And These owing their +immediate Birth to the peculiar Genius of each Age, an infinite Number of Things +alluded to, glanced at, and expos’d, must needs become obscure, as the +<i>Characters</i> themselves are antiquated, and disused. An Editor therefore +should be well vers’d in the +<span class = "pagenum">xlvi</span> +History and Manners of his Author’s Age, if he aims at doing him a Service in +this Respect.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Besides, <i>Wit</i> lying mostly in the Assemblage of <i>Ideas</i>, and in the +putting Those together with Quickness and Variety, wherein can be found any +Resemblance, or Congruity, to make up pleasant Pictures, and agreeable Visions +in the Fancy; the Writer, who aims at Wit, must of course range far and wide for +Materials. Now, the Age, in which <i>Shakespeare</i> liv’d, having, above all +others, a wonderful Affection to appear Learned, They declined vulgar Images, +such as are immediately fetch’d from Nature, and rang’d thro’ the Circle of the +Sciences to fetch their Ideas from thence. But as the Resemblances of such Ideas +to the Subject must necessarily lie very much out of the common Way, and every +piece of Wit appear a Riddle to the Vulgar; This, that should have taught them +the forced, quaint, unnatural Tract they were in, (and induce them to follow a +more natural One,) was the very Thing that kept them attach’d to it. The +ostentatious Affectation of abstruse Learning, peculiar to that Time, the Love +that Men naturally have to every Thing that looks like Mystery, fixed them down +to this Habit of Obscurity. Thus became the Poetry of +<span class = "extended">Donne</span> +(tho’ the wittiest Man of that Age,) nothing but a continued Heap of Riddles. +And our <i>Shakespeare</i>, with all his +<span class = "pagenum">xlvii</span> +easy Nature about him, for want of the Knowledge of the true Rules of Art, falls +frequently into this vicious Manner.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +The third Species of <i>Obscurities</i>, which deform our Author, as the Effects +of his own Genius and Character, are Those that proceed from his peculiar Manner +of <i>Thinking</i>, and as peculiar a Manner of <i>cloathing</i> those +<i>Thoughts</i>. With regard to his <i>Thinking</i>, it is certain, that he had +a general Knowledge of all the Sciences: But his Acquaintance was rather That of +a Traveller, than a Native. Nothing in Philosophy was unknown to him; but every +Thing in it had the Grace and Force of Novelty. And as Novelty is one main +Source of Admiration, we are not to wonder that He has perpetual Allusions to +the most recondite Parts of the Sciences: and This was done not so much out of +Affectation, as the Effect of Admiration begot by Novelty. Then, as to his +<i>Style</i> and <i>Diction</i>, we may much more justly apply to <span class = +"extended">Shakespeare</span>, what a celebrated Writer has said of <span class += "extended">Milton</span>; <i>Our Language sunk under him, and was unequal to +that Greatness of Soul which furnish’d him with such glorious Conceptions</i>. +He therefore frequently uses old Words, to give his Diction an Air of Solemnity; +as he coins others, to express the Novelty and Variety of his Ideas.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Upon every distinct Species of these <i>Obscurities</i> I have thought it my +Province to employ a Note, for the Service of my Author, +<span class = "pagenum">xlviii</span> +and the Entertainment of my Readers. A few transient Remarks too I have not +scrupled to intermix, upon the Poet’s <i>Negligences</i> and <i>Omissions</i> in +point of Art; but I have done it always in such a Manner, as will testify my +Deference and Veneration for the Immortal Author. Some Censurers of <i>Shakespeare</i>, +and particularly Mr. <i>Rymer</i>, have taught me to distinguish betwixt the +<i>Railer</i> and <i>Critick</i>. The Outrage of his Quotations is so remarkably +violent, so push’d beyond all Bounds of Decency and sober Reasoning, that it +quite carries over the Mark at which it was levell’d. Extravagant Abuse throws +off the Edge of the intended Disparagement, and turns the Madman’s Weapon into +his own Bosom. In short, as to <i>Rymer</i>, This is my Opinion of him from his +<i>Criticisms</i> on the <i>Tragedies</i> of the Last Age. He writes with great +Vivacity, and appears to have been a Scholar: but, as for his Knowledge of the +Art of Poetry, I can’t perceive it was any deeper than his Acquaintance with +<i>Bossu</i> and <i>Dacier</i>, from whom he has transcribed many of his best +Reflexions. The late Mr. <i>Gildon</i> was One attached to <i>Rymer</i> by a +similar Way of Thinking and Studies. They were Both of that Species of Criticks, +who are desirous of displaying their Powers rather in finding Faults, than in +consulting the Improvement of the World: the <i>hypercritical</i> Part of the +Science of <i>Criticism</i>.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">xlix</span> +<p class = "preface"> +I had not mentioned the modest Liberty I have here and there taken of animadverting +on my Author, but that I was willing to obviate in time the splenetick +Exaggerations of my Adversaries on this Head. From past Experiments I have +Reason to be conscious, in what Light this Attempt may be placed: and that what +I call a <i>modest Liberty</i>, will, by a little of their Dexterity, be +inverted into downright <i>Impudence</i>. From a hundred mean and dishonest +Artifices employ’d to discredit this Edition, and to cry down its Editor, I have +all the Grounds in Nature to be aware of Attacks. But tho’ the Malice of Wit +join’d to the Smoothness of Versification may furnish some Ridicule; Fact, I +hope, will be able to stand its Ground against Banter and Gaiety.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote">Shakespeare<i>’s Anachronisms defended.</i></span> +It has been my Fate, it seems, as I thought it my Duty, to discover some +<i>Anachronisms</i> in our Author; which might have slept in Obscurity but for +<i>this Restorer</i>, as Mr. <i>Pope</i> is pleas’d affectionately to style me; +as, for Instance, where <i>Aristotle</i> is mentioned by <i>Hector</i> in +<i>Troilus</i> and <i>Cressida</i>: and <i>Galen</i>, <i>Cato</i>, and +<i>Alexander</i> the Great, in <i>Coriolanus</i>. These, in Mr. <i>Pope</i>’s +Opinion, are Blunders, which the Illiteracy of the first Publishers of his Works +has father’d upon the Poet’s Memory: <i>it not being at all credible, that These +could be the Errors of any Man who had the least Tincture of a School, or the +least Conversation with</i> +<span class = "pagenum">l</span> +<i>such as had.</i> But I have sufficiently proved, in the Course of my +<i>Notes</i>, that such Anachronisms were the Effect of poetic Licence, rather +than of Ignorance in our Poet. And if I may be permitted to ask a modest +Question by the way, +<span class = "sidenote"><i>Mr. </i>Pope<i>’s Anachronisms examin’d.</i></span> +Why may not I restore an Anachronism really made by our Author, as well as Mr. +<i>Pope</i> take the Privilege to fix others upon him, which he never had it in +his Head to make; as I may venture to affirm He had not, in the Instance of Sir +<i>Francis Drake</i>, to which I have spoke in the proper Place?</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +But who shall dare make any Words about this Freedom of Mr. <i>Pope</i>’s +towards <i>Shakespeare</i>, if it can be prov’d, that, in his Fits of Criticism, +he makes no more Ceremony with good <i>Homer</i> himself? To try, then, a +Criticism of his own advancing; In the 8th Book of the <i>Odyssey</i>, where +<i>Demodocus</i> sings the Episode of the Loves of <i>Mars</i> and <i>Venus</i>; +and that, upon their being taken in the Net by <i>Vulcan</i>,</p> +<div class = "verse"> +——<i>the God of Arms<br> +Must pay the Penalty for lawless Charms;</i> +</div> +<p class = "preface"> +Mr. <i>Pope</i> is so kind gravely to inform us, “That <i>Homer</i> in This, as +in many other Places, seems to allude to the Laws of <i>Athens</i>, where Death +was the Punishment of Adultery.” But how is this significant Observation made +out? Why, who can possibly object any Thing to the Contrary?—<i>Does +not</i> +<span class = "pagenum">li</span> +Pausanias<i> relate, that </i>Draco<i> the Lawgiver to the </i>Athenians<i> +granted Impunity to any Person that took Revenge upon an Adulterer? And was it +not also the Institution of </i>Solon<i>, that if Any One took an Adulterer in +the Fact, he might use him as he pleas’d?</i> These Things are very true: and to +see What a good Memory, and sound Judgment in Conjunction can atchieve! Tho’ +<i>Homer</i>’s Date is not determin’d down to a single Year, yet ’tis pretty +generally agreed that he liv’d above 300 Years before <i>Draco</i> and +<i>Solon</i>: And That, it seems, has made him <i>seem</i> to allude to the very +Laws, which these Two Legislators propounded above 300 Years after. If this +Inference be not something like an <i>Anachronism</i> or <i>Prolepsis</i>, I’ll +look once more into my Lexicons for the true Meaning of the Words. It appears to +me, that somebody besides <i>Mars</i> and <i>Venus</i> has been caught in a Net +by this Episode: and I could call in other Instances to confirm what treacherous +Tackle this Network is, if not cautiously handled.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +How just, notwithstanding, I have been in detecting the Anachronisms of my +Author, and in defending him for the Use of them, Our late Editor seems to +think, They should rather have slept in Obscurity: and the having discovered +them is sneer’d at, as a sort of wrong-headed Sagacity.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +The numerous Corrections, which I made of the Poet’s Text in my <span class = +"extended">Shakespeare</span> +<span class = "pagenum">lii</span> +<i>Restor’d</i>, and which the Publick have been so kind to think well of, are, +in the Appendix of Mr. <i>Pope</i>’s last Edition, slightingly call’d <i>Various +Readings</i>, <i>Guesses</i>, &c. He confesses to have inserted as many of +them as he judg’d of any the least Advantage to the Poet; but says, that the +Whole amounted to about 25 Words: and pretends to have annexed a compleat List +of the Rest, which were not worth his embracing. Whoever has read my Book will +at one glance see, how in both these Points Veracity is strain’d, so an Injury +might but be done. <i>Malus etsi obesse non pote, tamen cogitat</i>.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote">Literal Criticism<i> defended.</i></span> +Another Expedient, to make my Work appear of a trifling Nature, has been an +Attempt to depreciate <i>Literal Criticism</i>. To this End, and to pay a +servile Compliment to Mr. <i>Pope</i>, an <i>Anonymous</i> Writer has, like a +<i>Scotch</i> Pedlar in Wit, unbraced his Pack on the Subject. But, that his +Virulence might not seem to be levelled singly at Me, he has done Me the Honour +to join Dr. <i>Bentley</i> in the Libel. I was in hopes, We should have been +Both abused with Smartness of Satire, at least; tho’ not with Solidity of +Argument: that it might have been worth some Reply in Defence of the Science +attacked. But I may fairly say of this Author, as <i>Falstaffe</i> does of +<i>Poins</i>;—<i>Hang him, Baboon! his Wit is as thick as </i>Tewksbury<i> +Mustard; there is no more Conceit in him, than is in a</i> <span class = +"extended">Mallet</span>. +<span class = "pagenum">liii</span> +If it be not Prophanation to set the Opinion of the divine <i>Longinus</i> +against such a Scribler, he tells us expresly, “That to make a Judgment upon +<i>Words</i> (and <i>Writings</i>) is the most consummate Fruit of much +Experience.” <span class = "greek">ἡ γὰρ τῶν λόγων κρίσις πολλῆς ἐστὶ πείρας +τελευταῖον ἐπιγέννημα.</span> Whenever Words are depraved, the Sense of course +must be corrupted; and thence the Readers betray’d into a false Meaning. Tho’ I +should be convicted of Pedantry by some, I’ll venture to subjoin a few flagrant +Instances, in which I have observed most Learned Men have suffer’d themselves to +be deceived, and consequently led their Readers into Error: and This for want of +the Help of <i>Literal Criticism</i>: in some, thro’ Indolence and Inadvertence: +in others, perhaps, thro’ an absolute Contempt of It. If the <i>Subject</i> may +seem to invite this Digression, I hope, the <i>Use</i> and <i>Application</i> +will serve to excuse it.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<a name="greek"> </a><br> +<span class = "sidenote">Platonius<i> corrected.</i></span> +I. In that golden Fragment, which we have left of <i>Platonius</i>, upon the +three Kinds of <i>Greek</i> Comedy, after he has told us, that when the State of +<i>Athens</i> was alter’d from a Democracy to an Oligarchy, and that the Poets +grew cautious whom they libell’d in their Comedies; when the People had no +longer any Desire to choose the accustom’d Officers for furnishing <i>Choric</i> +Singers, and defraying the Expence of them, <i>Aristophanes</i> brought on a +Play in which there was no <i>Chorus</i>. For, +<span class = "pagenum">liv</span> +subjoins He, <span class = "greek">τῶν γὰρ ΧΟΡΕΥΤΩΝ μὴ +χειροτονουμένων, καὶ τῶν ΧΟΡΗΓΩΝ οὐκ ἐχόντων τὰς τροφὰς, +ὑπεξῃρέθη τῆς Κωμῳδίας τὰ χορικὰ μέλη, καὶ τῶν ὑποθέσεων ὁ +τρόπος μετεβλήθη.</span> <i>“The </i>Chorus-Singers<i> being no longer chosen by +Suffrage, and the </i>Furnishers<i> of the</i> Chorus <i>no longer having their +Maintenance, the </i>Choric<i> Songs were taken out of Comedies, and the Nature +of the Argument and Fable chang’d.</i>” But there happen to be two signal +Mistakes in this short Sentence. For the <i>Chorus-Singers</i> were never +elected by Suffrage at all, but hir’d by the proper Officer who was at the +Expence of the <i>Chorus</i>: and the <i>Furnishers</i> of the <i>Chorus</i> had +never either Table, or Stipend, allowed them, towards their Charge. To what +Purpose then is this Sentence, which should be a Deduction from the Premises, +and yet is none, brought in? Or how comes the Reasoning to be founded upon what +was not the Fact? The Mistake manifestly arises from a careless Transposition +made in the Text: Let the two <i>Greek</i> Words, which I have distinguished by +<i>Capitals</i>, only change Places, and we recover what <i>Platonius</i> meant +to infer: +<span class = "footnote">A: <span class = "greek">Χορηγῶν.</span><br> +B: <span class = "greek">Χορευτῶν.</span></span> +“That the <sup>A</sup><i>Furnishers</i> of <i>Chorus</i>’s being no longer +elected by Suffrage, and the <sup>B</sup><i>Chorus-Singers</i> having no +Provision made for them, <i>Chorus</i>’s were abolished, and the Subjects of +Comedies alter’d.”</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +II. There is another more egregious Error still subsisting in this instructive +Fragment, +<span class = "pagenum">lv<br>d</span> +which has likewise escaped the Notice of the Learned. The Author is saying, +that, in the <i>old Comedy</i>, the <i>Masks</i> were made so nearly to resemble +the Persons to be satirized, that before the Actor spoke a Word, it was known +whom he was to personate. But, in the <i>New Comedy</i>, when <i>Athens</i> was +conquered by the <i>Macedonians</i>, and the Poets were fearful lest their Masks +should be construed to resemble any of their New Governors, they formed them so +preposterously as only to move Laughter; <span class = "greek">ὁρῶμεν γοῦν</span> +(says He) <span class = "greek">τὰς +ὀφρῦς ἐν τοῖς προσώποις τῆς Μενάνδρου κωμῳδίας ὁποίας ἔχει, καὶ +ὅπως ἐξεστραμμένον τὸ ΣΩΜΑ. καὶ οὐδε κατὰ ἀνθρώπων φύσιν.</span> “<i>We see +therefore what strange Eyebrows there are to the Masks used in</i> Menander<i>’s +Comedies; and how the </i>Body<i> is distorted, and unlike any human Creature +alive</i>.” But the Author, ’tis evident, is speaking abstractedly of <i>Masks</i>; +and what Reference has the <i>Distortion</i> of the <i>Body</i> to the Look <ins +class = "correction" title = "'f' invisible in original">of</ins> a <i>Visor</i>? +I am satisfied, <i>Platonius</i> wrote; <span class = "greek">καὶ ὅπως +ἐξεστραμμένον τὸ ὌΜΜΑ</span>, <i>i.e.</i> “and how the <i>Eyes</i> were +<i>goggled</i> and <i>distorted</i>.” This is to the Purpose of his Subject: and +<i>Jul. Pollux</i>, in describing the Comic Masques, speaks of some that had +<span class = "greek">ΣΤΡΕΒΛΟΝ τὸ ὌΜΜΑ</span>: Others, that were <span class = +"greek">ΔΙΑΣΤΡΟΦΟΙ τὴν ὌΨΙΝ</span>. <span class = "extended">Perversis</span> +<i>oculis</i>, as <i>Cicero</i> calls them, speaking of <i>Roscius</i>.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote">Camerarius<i> and </i>Keuster<i>, mistaken.</i></span> +III. <i>Suidas</i>, in the short Account that he has given us of <i>Sophocles</i>, +tells us, that, +<span class = "pagenum">lvi</span> +besides Dramatic Pieces, he wrote Hymns and Elegies; <span class = "greek">καὶ +λόγον καταλογάδην περὶ τοῦ Χοροῦ πρὸς Θέσπιν καὶ +Χοίριλον ἀγωνιζόμενος</span>. This the Learned <i>Camerarius</i> has thus +translated: <i>Scripsit Oratione solutâ de </i>Choro<i> contra </i>Thespin<i> +& </i>Choerilum<i> quempiam.</i> And <i>Keuster</i> likewise understood, and +render’d, the Passage to the same Effect. He owns, the Place is obscure, and +suspected by him. “<i>For how could </i>Sophocles<i> contend with </i>Thespis<i> +and </i>Choerilus<i>, who liv’d long before his Time?</i>” The Scholiast +upon +<span class = "footnote">C: In Ranis, v. 73.</span> +<sup>C</sup><i>Aristophanes</i>, however, expresly says, as <i>Keuster</i> might +have remember’d, that <i>Sophocles</i> actually did contend with <i>Choerilus</i>. +But that is a Point nothing to the Passage in Question; which means, as I have +shewn in another Place, <i>That </i>Sophocles<i> declaimed in Prose, contending +to obtain a </i>Chorus<i> for reviving some Pieces of </i>Thespis<i> and +</i>Choerilus<i>.</i> Is This contending against Them, as rival Poets?</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote">Meursius<i>, and </i>Camerarius<i> mistaken</i>.</span> +IV. Some other Learned Men have likewise been mistaken in Particulars with +regard to <i>Sophocles</i>. In the Synopsis of his Life, we find these Words; +<span class = "greek">Τελευτᾶ δὲ μετὰ +Ἐυριπίδην ἐτῶν ϛ’.</span> <i>Meursius</i>, as well as <i>Camerarius</i>, have +expounded This, as if <i>Sophocles</i> surviv’d <i>Euripides</i> six Years. But +the best Accounts agree that they died both in the same Year, a little before +the <i>Frogs</i> of <i>Aristophanes</i> was play’d; <i>scil.</i> Olymp. 93, 3. +The Meaning, therefore, of the Passage is, as some of the +<span class = "pagenum">lvii<br>d2</span> +Commentators have rightly observ’d; <i>That </i>Sophocles<i> died after +</i>Euripides<i>, at 90 Years of Age.</i> The Mistake arose from hence, that, in +Numerals, <span class = "greek">ϛ’</span> signifies as well 6 as 90.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote"><i>Father </i>Brumoy<i> mistaken.</i></span> +V. The Learned Father <i>Brumoy</i> too, who has lately given us three Volumes +upon the <i>Theatre</i> of the <i>Greeks</i>, has slipt into an Error about +<i>Sophocles</i>; for, speaking of his <i>Antigone</i>, he tells us, it was in +such Request as to be perform’d Two and Thirty times; <i>Elle fût representée +trente deux fois.</i> The Account, on which This is grounded, we have from the +Argument prefix’d to <i>Antigone</i> by <i>Aristophanes</i> the Grammarian: and +the <i>Latin</i> Translator of this Argument, probably, led Father <i>Brumoy</i> +into his Mistake, and he should have referr’d to the Original. The <i>Greek</i> +Words are; <span class = "greek">λέλεκται δὲ τὸ δρᾶμα τοῦτο τριακοστὸν +δεύτερον.</span> i. e. “<i>This </i>Play<i> is said to have been the </i>Thirty +Second<i>, in Order of Time, produced by</i> Sophocles.”</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +The Mistakes, that I have mentioned, (tho’ they necessarily lead into Error, +from the Authority with which they come into the World;) yet are such, ’tis +obvious, as have been the Effects of Inadvertence; and therefore I do not quote +them to the Dishonour of their Learned Authors. I shall point out Two or Three, +which seem to have sprung from another Source: either a due Want of Sagacity, or +an absolute Neglect of <i>literal Criticism</i>. + +<span class = "pagenum">lviii</span> +<span class = "sidenote"><i>Sir </i>George Wheler<i> corrected</i>.</span> +VI. Sir <i>George Wheler</i>, who, in his <span class = "extended">Journey</span> +into <span class = "extended">Greece</span>, has traded much with <i>Greek</i> +Antiquities and Inscriptions, and who certainly was no mean Scholar, has shewn +himself very careless in this Respect. When he was at <i>Sardis</i>, he met with +a Medal of the Emperor <i>Commodus</i> seated in the Midst of the Zodiack with +Celestial Signs engraven on it; and, on the other Side, a Figure with a +Crown-Mure with these Letters about it, <span class = "greek">Σάρδις Ἀσίας, +ΑΥΔΙΑΣ, Ἕλλαδος, ᾱ +μητρόπολις</span>: Sardis<i>, the first Metropolis of </i>Asia<i>, </i>Greece<i>, +and </i>Audia<i>.</i>—But where and what <i>Audia</i> was, (<i>says +He</i>) I find not. Now is it not very strange, that this Gentleman should not +remember, that <i>Sardis</i> was the Capital City of <i>Lydia</i>; and, +consequently, that for <span class = "greek">ΑΥΔΙΑΣ</span> we should read <span +class = "greek">ΛΥΔΊΑΣ</span>? Tho’ my Correction is too obvious to want any +Justification, yet, I find, it has One from the Learned Father +<span class = "footnote">D: In his <i>Nummi Antiqui illustrati</i>.</span> +<sup>D</sup><i>Harduin</i>; who produces another Coin of <i>Sardis</i> (in the +<i>French</i> King’s Cabinet) which bears the very same Inscription, only +exhibited as it ought to be.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Nor was This a single Inaccuracy in Sir <i>George</i>. I’ll instance in Two +pretty Inscriptions, the One an <i>Epitaph</i>, the other a <i>Votive Table</i>, +which He has given Us, but in a very corrupt Condition. Tho’ I have never been +in <i>Greece</i>, nor seen the Inscriptions any where but in <i>his</i> Book, I +think, I can restore them to their true Sense and Numbers: And, as +<span class = "pagenum">lix<br>d3</span> +they are particularly elegant, some Readers will not be displeas’d to see them +in a State of Purity.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote"><i>An </i>Epitaph<i> corrected and explained.</i></span> +VII. <i>Of the Antiquities of </i>Philadelphia<i> </i>(says he)<i> I had but a +slender Account; only I have the Copy of one Inscription, being the Monument of +a </i>Virgin<i>, in these three Couplets of Verses</i>. But she was so far from +being a <i>Virgin</i>, that the Epitaph shews her to have been a <i>Wife</i>; +that it was put up in Memory of Her by her <i>Husband</i>; and that she dy’d in +the Flower of her Youth at the Age of twenty three.</p> +<table summary = "close-ups of greek text"> +<tr> +<td> +<img src = "images/greek_lix_a.png" width = "480" height = "190" alt="Greek text"> +</td> +<td> +<img src = "images/greek_lix_b.png" width = "83" height = "220" alt="Greek +notes"> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br> +<div class = "verse"> +<span class = "footnote"> +1. <span class = "greek">βιότου παρέδωκεν.</span><br> +2. <span class = "greek">τιμήσας σεμνοτάτην.</span><br> +3. <span class = "greek">βιοῦσ᾽.</span><br> +4. <span class = "greek">τοῦτο λιποῦσα φάος.</span> +</span> +<span class = "greek">Ξαντίππην Ἀκύλα μνήμην <sup>1</sup>βίου παρέδωκην<br> + Βωμῷ <sup>2</sup>τειμήσας σεμνω ταυτην ἄλοχον‧<br> +Παρθένον ἧς ἀπέλυσε μίτρην ΗΣΔΡΙΟΝ ἄνθοσ.<br> + Ἔσκεν ἐν ἡμιτελεῖ παυσαμενον θαλάμῳ.<br> +Τρεῖς γαρ ἐπ᾽ εἰκοσίους τελεῶσε <sup>3</sup>βιον ἐνιαυτοὺς,<br> + Καὶ μετὰ τούσδε θάνεν <sup>4</sup>τουτου λιπουσαφαος.</span> +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +I have, for Brevity’s sake, mark’d the general Corrections, which I have made, +at the Side. The third Verse is neither true in Quantity, nor Language: <span +class = "greek">ΗΣΔΡΙΟΝ</span> is a Monster of a Word, which never could be the +Reading of any Marble. As I correct it, we recover a most beautiful Couplet.</p> + +<div class = "verse"> +<span class = "greek">Παρθένον, ἧς ἀπέλυσε μίτρην‧ ἯΣ ἨΡΙΝΌΝ ἄνθος<br> +Ἔσκεν ἐν ἡμιτελεῖ παυσάμενον θαλάμῳ.</span> +</div> +<span class = "pagenum">lx</span><br> +<div class = "verse"> +<i>Puellam, cujus Zonam solvit; cujus</i> <span class = "extended">Vernus</span> +<i>Flos<br> +Præproperô tabuit in Thalamô.</i> +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "sidenote"><i>A </i>Votive Table<i> corrected.</i></span> +VIII. I come now to the <i>Votive Table</i>, which is rich in poetick Graces, +however overwhelm’d with Depravation: and Sir <i>George</i> seems as much to +have mistaken the Purport, as the Words, of the Inscription. <i>At </i>Chalcedon<i>, +</i>says he<i>, I found an Inscription in the Wall of a private House near the +Church; which signifieth, that </i>Evante<i>, the Son of </i>Antipater<i>, +having made a prosperous Voyage, and desiring to return by the </i>Ægean<i> Sea, +offered Cakes at a Statue, which he had erected to </i>Jupiter<i>, which had +sent him such good Weather, as a Token of his good Voyage.</i></p> +<table summary = "close-ups of greek text"> +<tr> +<td> +<img src = "images/greek_lx_a.png" width = "477" height = "390" alt="Greek +text"> +</td> +<td> +<img src = "images/greek_lx_b.png" width = "84" height = "383" alt="Greek +notes"> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br> +<div class = "verse"> +<span class = "footnote"> +1. <span class = "greek"><ins class = "correction" title = +"accent as in original">Ὂυρον.</ins></span><br> +2. <span class = "greek">πρύμνης.</span><br> +3. <span class = "greek">πρώτων, ἱστίον.</span><br> +4. <span class = "greek">Κυανεαῖς δίνησιν ἐπίδρομον.</span><br> +5. <span class = "greek">Νόστον.</span><br> +6. <span class = "greek">βαλών.</span><br> +7. <span class = "greek">ξοάνῳ.</span><br> +8. <span class = "greek">Ἐσδέ.</span><br> +9. <span class = "greek">εὐανθῆ.</span><br> +10. <span class = "greek">Φίλων.</span> +</span> +<sup>1</sup><span class = "greek">ΟΥΡΙΟΝ ἐπὶ <sup>2</sup>ΠΡΙΜΝΗΣ τις ὁδηγητῆρα +καλείτω,<br> +Ζῆνα κατὰ <sup>3</sup>πρωτΟΝ ΩΝιστιον ἐκπετάσας<br> +<sup>4</sup>ΕΠΙ ΚΥΑΝΕΑΣ ΔΙΝΑΣ ΔΡΟΜΟΥΣ ἔνθα Ποσειδῶν<br> +Καμπύλον εἰλίσσει κῦμα παρὰ ψαμαθοῖς.<br> +Εἶτα κατ᾽ Αἰγαῖαν πόντου πλάκα <sup>5</sup>ΝΑΣ ἐρεύνων,<br> +Νείσθω‧ τῷ δὲ <sup>6</sup>ΒΑΛΛΩΝ ψαιστὰ παρὰ <sup>7</sup>ΤΩ ΖΩΑΝΩ.<br> +<sup>8</sup>ΟΔΕ τὸν <sup>9</sup>ΕΥΑΝΤΗ τὸν ἀεὶ θεὸν Ἀντιπάτρου παῖς<br> +Στησε <sup>10</sup>φιλων ἀγαθῆς σύμβολον εὐπλοΐης.</span> +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "pagenum">lxi<br>d4</span> +I have mark’d, as before, my Corrections at the Side; and I may venture to say, +I have supported the faltring Verses both with <i>Numbers</i> and <i>Sense</i>. +But who ever heard of <i>Evante</i>, as the Name of a Man, in <i>Greece</i>? +Neither is this Inscription a Piece of Ethnic Devotion, as Sir <i>George</i> has +suppos’d it, to a Statue erected to <i>Jupiter</i>: On the contrary, it despises +those fruitless Superstitions. <i>Philo</i> (a <i>Christian</i>, as it seems to +me;) sets it up, in Thanks for a safe Voyage, to the <i>true God</i>. That all +my Readers may equally share in this little Poem, I have attempted to put it +into an <i>English</i> Dress.</p> + +<div class = "verse"> +<i>Invoke who Will the prosp’rous Gale </i>behind<i>,<br> +</i>Jove<i> at the </i>Prow<i>, while to the guiding Wind<br> +O’er the blue Billows he the Sail expands,<br> +Where </i>Neptune<i> with each Wave heaps Hills of Sands:<br> +Then let him, when the Surge he backward plows,<br> +Pour to his Statue-God unaiding Vows:<br> +But to the God of Gods, for Deaths o’erpast,<br> +For Safety lent him on the <ins class = "correction" +title = "no apostrophe in original">watry</ins> Waste,<br> +To native Shores return’d, thus </i>Philo<i> pays<br> +His Monument of Thanks, of grateful Praise.</i> +</div> + +<p class = "preface"> +I shall have no Occasion, I believe, to ask the Pardon of <i>some</i> Readers +for these <i>Nine</i> last Pages; and Others may be so kind to pass them over at +their Pleasure. (Those Discoveries, which give Light and Satisfaction to +<span class = "pagenum">lxii</span> +the truly Learned, I must confess, are Darkness and Mystery to the less capable: +<span class = "greek">Φέγγος μὲν ξυνετοῖς, ἀξυνετοῖς +δ᾽ Ἐρεβος</span>.) Nor will they be absolutely foreign, I hope, to a Preface in +some Measure critical; especially, as it could not be amiss to shew, that I have +read other Books with the same Accuracy, with which I profess to have read +<i>Shakespeare</i>. Besides, I design’d this Inference from the Defence of +Literal Criticism. If the <i>Latin</i> and <i>Greek</i> Languages have receiv’d +the greatest Advantages imaginable from the Labours of the Editors and Criticks +of the two last Ages; by whose Aid and Assistance the Grammarians have been +enabled to write infinitely better in that Art than even the preceding +Grammarians, who wrote when those Tongues flourish’d as living Languages: I +should account it a peculiar Happiness, that, by the faint Assay I have made in +this Work, a Path might be chalk’d out, for abler Hands, by which to derive the +same Advantages to our own Tongue: a Tongue, which, tho’ it wants none of the +fundamental Qualities of an universal Language, yet as a <i>noble Writer</i> +says, lisps and stammers as in its Cradle; and has produced little more towards +its polishing than Complaints of its Barbarity.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "footnote"><i>The Delay of this Edition excused.</i></span> +Having now run thro’ all those Points, which I intended should make any Part of +this Dissertation, it only remains, that I should account to the Publick, but +more particularly to +<span class = "pagenum">lxiii</span> +my Subscribers, why they have waited so long for this Work; that I should make +my Acknowledgments to those Friends, who have been generous Assistants to me in +the conducting it: and, lastly, that I should acquaint my Readers what Pains I +have myself taken to make the Work as complete, as faithful Industry, and my +best Abilities, could render it.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +In the middle of the Year 1728, I first put out my <i>Proposals</i> for +publishing only <i>Emendations</i> and <i>Remarks</i> on our Poet: and I had not +gone on many Months in this Scheme, before I found it to be the unanimous Wish +of those who did me the Honour of their Subscriptions, that I would give them +the Poet’s Text corrected; and that I would subjoin those Explanatory Remarks, +which I had purpos’d to publish upon the Foot of my first Proposals. Earnest +Sollicitations were made to me, that I would think of such an Edition; which I +had as strong Desires to listen to: and some <i>noble</i> Persons then, whom I +have no Privilege to name, were pleased to interest themselves so far in the +Affair, as to propose to Mr. <i>Tonson</i> his undertaking an Impression of +<i>Shakespeare</i> with my Corrections. The throwing my whole Work into a +different Form, to comply with this Proposal, was not the slightest Labour: and +so no little Time was unavoidably lost. While the Publication of my Remarks was +thus respited, my +<span class = "pagenum">lxiv</span> +Enemies took an unfair Occasion to suggest, that I was extorting Money from my +Subscribers, without ever designing to give them any Thing for it: an Insinuation +levell’d at once to wound me in Reputation and Interest. Conscious, however, of +my own just Intentions, and labouring all the while to bring my wish’d Purpose +to bear, I thought these anonymous Slanderers worthy of no Notice. A Justification +of myself would have been giving them Argument for fresh Abuse; and I was +willing to believe that any unkind Opinions, entertain’d to my Prejudice, would +naturally drop and lose their Force, when the Publick should once be convinc’d +that I was in Earnest, and ready to do them Justice. I left no Means untry’d to +put it in my Power to do this: and I hope, without Breach of Modesty, I may +venture to appeal to all candid Judges, whether I have not employ’d all my Power +to be just to them in the Execution of my Task. I must needs have been in the +most Pain, who saw myself daily so barbarously outraged. I might have taken +advantage of the favourable Impressions entertain’d of my Work, and hurried it +crudely into the World: But I have suffer’d, for my Author’s sake, those +Impressions to cool, and perhaps, be lost; and can now appeal only to the +<i>Judgment</i> of the Publick. If I succeed in this Point, the Reputation +gain’d will be the more solid and lasting. +<span class = "pagenum">lxv</span> +<span class = "footnote"><i>Acknowledgment of Assistance.</i></span> +I come now to speak of those kind Assistances which I have met with from +particular Friends, towards forwarding and compleating this Work. Soon after my +Design was known, I had the Honour of an Invitation to <i>Cambridge</i>; and a +generous Promise from the Learned and ingenious Dr. <i>Thirlby</i> +of <i>Jesus</i>-College, +there, who had taken great Pains with my Author, that I should have the Liberty +of collating his Copy of <i>Shakespeare</i>, mark’d thro’ in the Margin with his +own Manuscript References and accurate Observations. He not only made good this +Promise, but favour’d me with a Set of Emendations, interspers’d and distinguish’d +in his Name thro’ the Edition, and which can need no Recommendation here to the +judicious Reader.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +The next Assistance I receiv’d was from my ingenious Friend <i>Hawley Bishop</i> +Esq; whose great Powers and extensive Learning are as well known, as his +uncommon Modesty, to all who have the Happiness of his Acquaintance. This +Gentleman was so generous, at the Expence both of his Pocket and Time, to run +thro’ all <i>Shakespeare</i> with me. We join’d Business and Entertainment +together; and at every of our Meetings, which were constantly once a Week, we +read over a <i>Play</i>, and came mutually prepar’d to communicate our +Conjectures upon it to each other. The Pleasure of these Appointments, +I +<span class = "pagenum">lxvi</span> +think, I may say, richly compensated for the Labour in our own Thoughts: and I +may venture to affirm, in the Behalf of my Assistant, that our Author has +deriv’d no little Improvement from them.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +To these, I must add the indefatigable Zeal and Industry of my most ingenious +and ever-respected Friend, the Reverend Mr. <i>William Warburton</i> of +<i>Newark</i> upon <i>Trent</i>. This Gentleman, from the Motives of his frank +and communicative Disposition, voluntarily took a considerable Part of my +Trouble off my Hands; not only read over the whole Author for me, with the +exactest Care; but enter’d into a long and laborious Epistolary Correspondence; +to which I owe no small Part of my best Criticisms upon my Author.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +The Number of Passages amended, and admirably Explained, which I have taken care +to distinguish with his Name, will shew a Fineness of Spirit and Extent of +Reading, beyond all the Commendations I can give them: Nor, indeed, would I any +farther be thought to commend a Friend, than, in so doing, to give a Testimony +of my own Gratitude. How great a share soever of Praise I must lose from my +self, in confessing these Assistances; and however my own poor Conjectures may +be weaken’d by the Comparison with theirs; I am very well content to sacrifice +my Vanity to the Pride of being so assisted, and the Pleasure of being just +to +<span class = "pagenum">lxvii</span> +their Merits. I beg leave to observe to my Readers, in one Word, here, that from +the Confession of these successive Aids, and the Manner in which I deriv’d them, +it appears, I have pretty well fill’d up the <i>Interval</i>, betwixt my first +<i>Proposals</i> and my <i>Publication</i>, with having my Author always in +View, and at Heart.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +Some Hints I have the Honour to owe to the Informations of Dr. <i>Mead</i>, and +the late Dr. <i>Friend</i>: Others to the Kindness of the ingenious <i>Martin +Folkes</i>, Esq; who likewise furnish’d me with the first <i>folio</i> Edition +of <i>Shakespeare</i>, at a Time when I could not meet with it among the +Booksellers; as my obliging Friend <i>Thomas Coxeter</i>, Esq; did with several +of the old 4<sup>to</sup> single Plays, which I then had not in my own +Collection. Some few Observations I likewise owe to <i>F. Plumptree</i>, Esq; +Others to the Favour of anonymous Persons: for all which I most gladly render my +Acknowledgments.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +<span class = "footnote"><i>The Editor’s particular Pains taken.</i></span> +As to what regards my self singly, if the Edition do not speak for the Pains I +have taken about it, it will be very vain to plead my own Labour and Diligence. +Besides a faithful Collation of all the printed Copies, which I have exhibited +in my <i>Catalogue</i> of <i>Editions</i> at the End of this Work; let it +suffice to say, that, to clear up several Errors in the Historical Plays, I +purposely read over <i>Hall</i> and <i>Holingshead</i>’s Chronicles in the +Reigns concern’d; all the Novels in <i>Italian</i>, +<span class = "pagenum">lxviii</span> +from which our Author had borrow’d any of his Plots; such Parts of <i>Plutarch</i>, +from which he had deriv’d any Parts of his <i>Greek</i> or <i>Roman</i> Story: +<i>Chaucer</i> and <i>Spenser</i>’s Works; all the Plays of <i>B. Jonson</i>, +<i>Beaumont</i> and <i>Fletcher</i>, and above 800 old <i>English</i> Plays, to +ascertain the obsolete and uncommon Phrases in him: Not to mention some Labour +and Pains unpleasantly spent in the dry Task of consulting Etymological +<i>Glossaries</i>.</p> + +<p class = "preface"> +But as no Labour of Mine can be equivalent to the dear and ardent Love I bear +for <i>Shakespeare</i>, so, if the Publick shall be pleas’d to allow that He +owes any Thing to my Willingness and Endeavours of restoring Him; I shall reckon +the Part of my Life so engag’d, to have been very happily employ’d: and put +Myself, with great Submission, to be try’d by my Country in the Affair.</p> +<br> +<hr> +<hr> +<a name="ARSpubs"> </a><br> +<p align = "center"><i>The Editors of</i> THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY<br> +<br> +<i>are pleased to announce that</i><br> +<br> +THE WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY<br> +<br> +<i>of The University of California, Los Angeles</i></p> + +<p>will become the publisher of the Augustan Reprints in May, 1949. The +editorial policy of the Society will continue unchanged. As in the past, the +editors will strive to furnish members inexpensive reprints of rare seventeenth +and eighteenth century works.</p> +<br> +<br> +<!--PG hyperlinks begin here--> + +<div class = "mynote"> +[Transcriber’s Note:<br> +Many of the listed titles are or will be available from Project +Gutenberg. Where possible, a link to the e-text is given.] +</div> + +<p align = "center">Publications for the fourth year (1949-1950)</p> + +<table align = "center" summary = "list of planned publications"> +<tr> +<td colspan = "2"> +<p align = "center"><i>(At least six items will be printed in the main from the +following list)</i><br> +</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td width = "50%"><span class = "smallcaps">Series IV: Men, Manners, and +Critics</span><br> + John Dryden, +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15074"><i>His Majesties +Declaration Defended</i></a> (1681)<br> + Daniel Defoe (?), +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14084"><i>Vindication of the Press</i></a> +(1718)<br> + <i>Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela</i> +(1754)<br> +</td> +<td><span class = "smallcaps">Series VI: Poetry and Language</span><br> + Andre Dacier, <i>Essay on Lyric Poetry</i><br> + <i>Poems</i> by Thomas Sprat<br> + <i>Poems</i> by the Earl of Dorset<br> + Samuel Johnson, +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13350"><i>Vanity of Human +Wishes</i></a> (1749), and one of the 1750 <i>Rambler</i> papers.<br> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><span class = "smallcaps">Series V: Drama</span><br> + Thomas Southerne, <i>Oroonoko</i> (1696)<br> + Mrs. Centlivre, <i>The Busie Body </i>(1709)<br> + Charles Johnson, <i>Caelia</i> (1733)<br> + Charles Macklin, +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14463"><i>Man of the World</i></a> +(1781)<br> +</td> +<td><span class = "smallcaps">Extra Series:</span><br> + Lewis Theobald, <ins class = "correction" title = +"wording as in original"><i>Preface to Shakespeare’s Works</i></ins> (1733)<br> +<p>A few copies of the early publications of the Society are still available at +the original rate.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br> +<hr> +<br> +<table align = "center" summary = "names of general editors"> +<tr> +<td colspan = "2"> +<p align = "center"><i>GENERAL EDITORS</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td width = "50%"> +<span class = "smallcaps">H. Richard Archer</span>, <i>William Andrews Clark +Memorial Library</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">Richard C. Boys</span>, <i>University of +Michigan</i> +</td> +<td> +<span class = "smallcaps">Edward Niles Hooker</span>, <i>University of +California, Los Angeles</i><br> +<span class = "smallcaps">H. T. Swedenberg, Jr.</span>, <i>University +of California, Los Angeles</i> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br> +<p align = "center">PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY</p> + +<div class = "publist"> +First Year (1946-1947) +</div> +<br> +<div class = "publist1"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13484">1.</a> +Richard Blackmore’s <i>Essay upon Wit</i> (1716), and Addison’s +<i>Freeholder</i> No. 45 (1716). (I, 1) +</div> +<div class = "publist1"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14528">2.</a> +Samuel Cobb’s <i>Of Poetry</i> and <i>Discourse on Criticism</i> +(1707). (II, 1) +</div> +<div class = "publist1"> +3. <i>Letter to A.H. Esq.; concerning the Stage</i> (1698), and Richard +Willis’ <i>Occasional Paper No. IX</i> (1698). (III, 1) +</div> +<div class = "publist1"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14973">4.</a> +<i>Essay on Wit</i> (1748), together with Characters by Flecknoe, and +Joseph Warton’s <i>Adventurer</i> Nos. 127 and 133. (I, 2) +</div> +<div class = "publist1"> +5. Samuel Wesley’s <i>Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry</i> (1700) +and <i>Essay on Heroic Poetry</i> (1693). (II, 2) +</div> +<div class = "publist1"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15656">6.</a> +<i>Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the Stage</i> (1704) +and <i>Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage</i> (1704). (III, 2) +</div> +<br> +<div class = "publist"> +Second Year (1947-1948) +</div> +<br> +<div class = "publist1"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14800">7.</a> +John Gay’s <i>The Present State of Wit</i> (1711); and a section on Wit +from <i>The English Theophrastus</i> (1702). (I, 3) +</div> +<div class = "publist1"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14495">8.</a> +Rapin’s <i>De Carmine Pastorali</i>, translated by Creech (1684). (II, 3) +</div> +<div class = "publist1"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14899">9.</a> +T. Hanmer’s (?) <i>Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet</i> (1736). +(III, 3) +</div> +<div class = "publist"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16233">10.</a> +Corbyn Morris’ <i>Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, etc.</i> +(1744). (I, 4) +</div> +<div class = "publist"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15313">11.</a> +Thomas Purney’s <i>Discourse on the Pastoral</i> (1717). (II, 4) +</div> +<div class = "publist"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16335">12.</a> +Essays on the Stage, selected, with an Introduction by Joseph Wood +Krutch. (III, 4) +</div> +<br> +<div class = "publist"> +Third Year (1948-1949) +</div> +<br> +<div class = "publist"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15999">13.</a> +Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), <i>The Theatre</i> (1720). (IV, 1) +</div> +<div class = "publist"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16267">14.</a> +Edward Moore’s <i>The Gamester</i> (1753). (V, 1) +</div> +<div class = "publist"> +15. John Oldmixon’s <i>Reflections on Dr. Swift’s Letter to Harley</i> +(1712); and Arthur Mainwaring’s <i>The British Academy</i> (1712). (VI, 1) +</div> +<div class = "publist"> +16. Nevil Payne’s <i>Fatal Jealousy</i> (1673). (V, 2) +</div> +<div class = "publist"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16275">17.</a> +Nicholas Rowe’s <i>Some Account of the Life of Mr. William +Shakespear</i> (1709). (Extra Series, 1) +</div> +<div class = "publist"> +<a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15870">18.</a> +Aaron Hill’s Preface to <i>The Creation</i>; and Thomas Brereton’s +Preface to <i>Esther</i>. (IV, 2) +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Preface to the Works of Shakespeare +(1734), by Lewis Theobald + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PREFACE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE *** + +***** This file should be named 16346-h.htm or 16346-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/3/4/16346/ + +Produced by David Starner, Louise Hope and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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