The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 1 of 9]

This passage, as any one may see who examines the text, is much more like a description of what the editor did not do than of what he did. Although in many instances he restored, from some Quarto, passages which had been omitted in the Folio, it is very rarely indeed that we find any evidence of his having collated either the first Folio or any Quarto, with proper care. The ‘innovations’ which he made, according to his own ‘private sense and conjecture,’ are extremely numerous. Not one in twenty of the various readings is put in the margin, and the readings in his text very frequently rest upon no authority whatever. The glaring inconsistency between the promise in the preface and the performance in the book may well account for its failure with the public.

It would, however, be ungrateful not to acknowledge that Pope’s emendations are always ingenious and plausible, and sometimes unquestionably true. He never seems to nod over that ‘dull labour’ of which he complains. His acuteness of perception is never at fault.

What is said of him in the preface to Theobald’s edition is, in this point, very unjust⁶.

‘They have both (i. e. Pope and Rymer⁷) shown themselves in an equal impuissance of suspecting or amending the corrupted passages, &c.’

Pope was the first to indicate the place of each new scene; as, for instance, Tempest, I. 1. ‘On a ship at sea.’ He also subdivided the scenes as given by the Folios and Rowe, making a fresh scene whenever a new character entered – an arrangement followed by Hanmer, Warburton, and Johnson. For convenience of reference to these editions, we have always recorded the commencement of Pope’s scenes.

By a minute comparison of the two texts we find that Pope printed his edition from Rowe, not from any of the Folios.

A second edition, 10 volumes, 12mo, was published in 1728, ‘by Mr Pope and Dr Sewell.’ In this edition, after Pope’s preface, reprinted, comes: ‘A table of the several editions of Shakespeare’s plays, made use of and compared in this impression.’ Then follows a list containing the first and second Folios, and twenty-eight Quarto editions of separate plays. It does not, however, appear that even the first Folio was compared with any care, for the changes made in this second edition are very few.

Lewis Theobald had the misfortune to incur the enmity of one who was both the most popular poet, and, if not the first, at least the second, satirist of his time. The main cause of offence was Theobald’s Shakespeare Restored, or a Specimen of the many Errors committed as well as unamended by Mr Pope in his late edition of this Poet, 1726. Theobald was also in the habit of communicating notes on passages of Shakespeare to Mist’s Journal, a weekly Tory paper. Hence he was made the hero of the Dunciad till dethroned in the fourth edition to make way for Cibber; hence, too, the allusions in that poem:

 
‘There hapless Shakespear, yet of Theobald sore,
Wish’d he had blotted for himself before;’
 

and, in the earlier editions,

 
‘Here studious I unlucky moderns save,
Nor sleeps one error in its father’s grave;
Old puns restore, lost blunders nicely seek,
And crucify poor Shakespear once a week.’
 

Pope’s editors and commentators, adopting their author’s quarrel, have spoken of Theobald as ‘Tibbald, a cold, plodding, and tasteless writer and critic.’ These are Warton’s words. A more unjust sentence was never penned. Theobald, as an Editor, is incomparably superior to his predecessors, and to his immediate successor, Warburton, although the latter had the advantage of working on his materials. He was the first to recal a multitude of readings of the first Folio unquestionably right, but unnoticed by previous editors. Many most brilliant emendations, such as could not have suggested themselves to a mere ‘cold, plodding, and tasteless critic,’ are due to him. If he sometimes erred – ‘humanum est.’ It is remarkable that with all his minute diligence⁸, (which even his enemies conceded to him, or rather of which they accused him) he left a goodly number of genuine readings from the first Folio to be gleaned by the still more minutely diligent Capell. It is to be regretted that he gave up numbering the scenes, which makes his edition difficult to refer to. It was first published in 1733, in seven volumes, 8vo. A second, 8 volumes, 12mo, appeared in 1740.

In 1744, a new edition of Shakespeare’s Works, in six volumes, 4to, was published at Oxford. It appeared with a kind of sanction from the University, as it was printed at the Theatre, with the Imprimatur of the Vice-Chancellor, and had no publisher’s name on the title-page. The Editor is not named – hence he is frequently referred to by subsequent critics as ‘the Oxford Editor’; – but as he was well known to be Sir Thomas Hanmer, we have always referred to the book under his name. We read in the preface: ‘What the Publick is here to expect is a true and correct Edition of Shakespear’s Works, cleared from the corruptions with which they have hitherto abounded. One of the great admirers of this incomparable author hath made it the amusement of his leisure hours for many years past to look over his writings with a careful eye, to note the obscurities and absurdities introduced into the text, and according to the best of his judgment to restore the genuine sense and purity of it. In this he proposed nothing to himself but his private satisfaction in making his own copy as perfect as he could; but as the emendations multiplied upon his hands, other Gentlemen equally fond of the Author, desired to see them, and some were so kind as to give their assistance by communicating their observations and conjectures upon difficult passages which had occurred to them.’

From this passage the character of the edition may be inferred. A country gentleman of great ingenuity and lively fancy, but with no knowledge of older literature, no taste for research, and no ear for the rhythm of earlier English verse, amused his leisure hours by scribbling down his own and his friends’ guesses in Pope’s Shakespeare, and with this apparatus criticus, if we may believe Warburton, ‘when that illustrious body, the University of Oxford, in their public capacity, undertook an edition of Shakespeare by subscription,’ Sir T. Hanmer ‘thrust himself into the employment.’

Whether from the sanction thus given, or from its typographical beauty, or from the plausibility of its new readings, this edition continued in favour, and even ‘rose to the price of 10l. 10s. before it was reprinted in 1770-1, while Pope’s, in quarto, at the same period sold off at Tonson’s sale for 16s. per copy.’ Bohn, p. 2260.

In 1747, three years after Pope’s death, another edition of Shakespeare based upon his appeared, edited by Mr Warburton.

On the title-page are these words: ‘The Genuine Text (collated with all the former Editions, and then corrected and emended) is here settled: Being restored from the Blunders of the first Editors, and the Interpolations of the two Last: with a Comment and Notes, Critical and Explanatory. By Mr Pope and Mr Warburton⁹.’

The latter, in his preface, vehemently attacks Theobald and Hanmer, accusing both of plagiarism and even fraud. ‘The one was recommended to me as a poor Man, the other as a poor Critic: and to each of them, at different times, I communicated a great number of Observations, which they managed as they saw fit to the Relief of their several distresses. As to Mr Theobald, who wanted Money, I allowed him to print what I gave him for his own Advantage: and he allowed himself in the Liberty of taking one Part for his own, and sequestering another for the Benefit, as I supposed, of some future Edition. But as to the Oxford Editor, who wanted nothing, but what he might very well be without, the reputation of a Critic, I could not so easily forgive him for trafficking in my Papers without my knowledge; and when that Project fail’d, for employing a number of my Conjectures in his Edition against my express Desire not to have that Honour done unto me.’

Again he says of Hanmer: ‘Having a number of my Conjectures before him, he took as many as he saw fit to work upon, and by changing them to something, he thought, synonimous or similar, he made them his own,’ &c. &c. p. xii.

Of his own performance Warburton says, ‘The Notes in this Edition take in the whole Compass of Criticism. The first sort is employed in restoring the Poet’s genuine Text; but in those places only where it labours with inextricable Nonsense. In which, how much soever I may have given scope to critical Conjecture, when the old Copies failed me, I have indulged nothing to Fancy or Imagination; but have religiously observed the severe Canons of literal Criticism, &c. &c.’ p. xiv. Yet further on he says, ‘These, such as they are, were amongst my younger amusements, when, many years ago I used to turn over these sort of Writers to unbend myself from more serious applications.’

The excellence of the edition proved to be by no means proportionate to the arrogance of the editor. His text is, indeed, better than Pope’s, inasmuch as he introduced many of Theobald’s restorations and some probable emendations both of his own and of the two editors whom he so unsparingly denounced, but there is no trace whatever, so far as we have discovered, of his having collated for himself either the earlier Folios or any of the Quartos.

Warburton¹⁰ was, in his turn, severely criticised by Dr Zachary Grey, and Mr John Upton, in 1746, and still more severely by Mr Thomas Edwards, in his Supplement to Mr Warburton’s edition of Shakespeare, 1747. The third edition of Mr Edwards’s book, 1750, was called Canons of Criticism and Glossary, being a Supplement, &c. This title is a sarcastic allusion to two passages in Warburton’s preface: ‘I once intended to have given the Reader a body of Canons, for literal Criticism, drawn out in form,’ &c. p. xiv, and ‘I had it once, indeed, in my design, to give a general alphabetic Glossary of these terms,’ &c. p. xvi. Dr Grey’s attack was reprinted, with additions, and a new title, in 1751, and again in 1752. Warburton and his predecessors were passed in review also by Mr Benjamin Heath, in A Revisal of Shakespeare’s text, 1765.

Dr Samuel Johnson first issued proposals for a new edition of Shakespeare in 1745, but met with no encouragement. He resumed the scheme in 1756, and issued a new set of Proposals (reprinted in Malone’s preface), ‘in which,’ says Boswell, ‘he shewed that he perfectly well knew what a variety of research such an undertaking required, but his indolence prevented him from pursuing it with that diligence, which alone can collect those scattered facts that genius, however acute, penetrating, and luminous, cannot discover by its own force.’ Johnson deceived himself so far, as to the work to be done and his own energy in doing it, that he promised the publication of the whole before the end of the following year. Yet, though some volumes were printed as early as 1758 (Boswell, Vol. II. p. 84), it was not published till 1765, and might never have been published at all, but for Churchill’s stinging satire:

 
‘He for subscribers baits his hook,
And takes your cash, but where’s the book?
No matter where; wise fear, you know,
Forbids the robbing of a foe,
But what, to serve our private ends,
Forbids the cheating of our friends?’
 

Not only Johnson’s constitutional indolence and desultory habits, but also the deficiency of his eye-sight, incapacitated him for the task of minute collation. Nevertheless, he did consult the older copies, and has the merit of restoring some readings which had escaped Theobald. He had not systematically studied the literature and language of the 16th and 17th centuries; he did not always appreciate the naturalness, simplicity, and humour of his author, but his preface and notes are distinguished by clearness of thought and diction and by masterly common sense. He used Warburton’s text, to print his own from. The readings and suggestions attributed to ‘Johnson,’ in our notes, are derived either from the edition of 1765, or from those which he furnished to the subsequent editions in which Steevens was his co-editor. Some few also found by the latter in Johnson’s hand on the margin of his copy of ‘Warburton,’ purchased by Steevens at Johnson’s sale, were incorporated in later editions. Johnson’s edition was attacked with great acrimony by Dr Kenrick, 1765 (Boswell, Vol. II. p. 300). It disappointed the public expectation, but reached, nevertheless, a second edition in 1768. Tyrwhitt’s Observations and Conjectures were published anonymously in 1766.