I trust, be found occupied by more valuable matter. As some of the preceding editors have justly been condemned for innovation, so perhaps (for of objections there is no end,) I may be cenfured for too ftrict an adherence to the ancient copies. I have constantly had in view the Roman sentiment adopted by Dr. Johnson, that " it is more honourable to save a citizen than to destroy an enemy," and, like him, " have been more careful to protect than to attack."-" I do not wish the reader to forget, (fays the same writer,) that the most commodious (and he might have added, the most forcible and elegant,) is not always the true reading."5 On this principle I have uniformly proceeded, having refolved never to deviate from the authentick copies, merely because the phraseologywas harsh or uncommon. Many passages, which have heretofore been confidered as corrupt, and are now supported by the usage of contemporary writers, fully prove the propriety of this caution." * King Henry IV. Part II. See particularly The Merchant of Venice, Vol. VII. p. 297: "By the fool multitude." with the note there. We undoubtedly should not now write " But, left myself be guilty to self-wrong,-" yet we find this phrase in The Comedy of Errors, Act III. Vol. XX. See also The Winter's Tale, Vol. IX. p. 420 : " This your son-in-law, "And fon unto the king, (whom heavens directing,) Measure for Measure, Vol. VI. p. 358 : "-to be so bared,-." "Which often, thus, correcting thy ftout heart," &c. Hamlet, Vol. XVIII. p. 40: "That he might not beteem the winds of heaven," &c. The rage for innovation till within these last thirty years was so great, that many words were dismissed from our poet's text, which in his time were current in every mouth. In all the editions since that of Mr. Rowe, in the Second Part of King Henry IV. the word channel has been rejected, and kennel substituted in its room, though the former term was commonly employed in the fame sense in the time of our author; and the learned Bishop of Worcester has strenuously endeavoured to prove that in Cymbeline the poet wrote-not shakes, but shuts or checks, "all our buds from growing;" though the authenticity of the original reading is established beyond all controversy by two other passages of Shakspeare. Very foon, indeed, after his death, this rage for innovation seems to have seized his editors; for in the year 1616 an edition of his Rape of Lucrece was published, which was faid to be newly revised and corrected; but in which, in fact, several arbitrary changes were made, and the ancient diction rejected for one fomewhat more modern. Even in the first complete collection of his plays published in 1623, " As you like it, Vol. VIII. p. 59, n. 7: "Whom heavens, in justice, (both on her and hers,) 2 Act II. fc. i: -throw the quean in the channel." In that passage, as in many others, I have filently restored the original reading, without any observation; but the word in this sense, being now obsolete, should have been illuftrated by a note. This defect, however, will be found remedied in K. Henry VI. P. II. A& II. fc. ii: "As if a channel should be call'd a sea." • Hurd's HOR. 4th. edit. Vol. I. p. 55. fome changes were undoubtedly made from ignorance of his meaning and.phraseology. They had, I fuppofe, been made in the playhouse copies after his retirement from the theatre. Thus in Othello, Brabantio is made to call to his domefticks to raise " some special officers of might," instead of " officers of night;" and the phrase " of all loves," in the fame play, not being understood, " for love's fake" was substituted in its room." So, in Hamlet, we have erę ever for or ever, and rites instead of the more ancient word, crants. In King Lear, Act I. fc. i. the substitution of" Goes thy heart with this?" instead of" Goes this with thy heart?" without doubt arose from the fame cause, In the plays of which we have no quarto copies, we may be fure that fimilar innovations were made, though we have now no certain means of detecting them. After what has been proved concerning the fophiftications and corruptions of the Second Folio, we cannot be surprized that when these plays were republished by Mr. Rowe in the beginning of this century from a later folio, in which the interpolations of the former were all preserved, and many new errors added, almost every page of his work was disfigured by accumulated corruptions. In Mr. Pope's edition our author was not less misrepresented; for though by examining the oldest copies he detected some errors, by his numerous fanciful alterations the poet was so completely modernized, that I am confident, had he "re-vifited the glimpses of the moon," he would not have understood his own works. From the quartos indeed a few valuable restorations were made; but all the advantage that was thus obtained, was outweighed by arbitrary changes, transpositions, and interpolations. The readers of Shakspeare being disgusted with the liberties taken by Mr. Pope, the subsequent edition of Theobald was justly preferred; because he professed to adhere to the ancient copies more strictly than his competitor, and illuftrated a few passages by extracts from the writers of our poet's age. That his work should at this day be confidered of any value, only shows how long impreffions will remain, when they are once made; for Theobald, though not so great an innovator as Pope, was yet a confiderable innovator; and his edition being printed from that of his immediate predeceffor, while a few arbitrary changes made by Pope were detected, innumerable sophistications were filently adopted. His knowledge of the contemporary authors was so scanty, that all the illuftration of that kind dispersed throughout his volumes, has been exceeded by the researches which have fince been made for the purpose of elucidating a fingle play. Of Sir Thomas Hanmer it is only neceffary to say, that he adopted almost all the innovations of Pope, adding to them whatever caprice dictated. To him fucceeded Dr. Warburton, a critick, who (as hath been faid of Salmafius) seems to have erected his throne on a heap of ftones, that he might have them at hand to throw at the heads of all those who passed by. His unbounded licence in substituting his own chimerical conceits in the place of the author's genuine text, has been fo fully shown by his revisers, that I suppose no critical reader will ever again open his volumes. An hundred strappadoes, according to an Italian comick writer, would not have induced Petrarch, were he living, to subscribe to the meaning which certain commentators after his death had by their glosses extorted from his works. It is a curious speculation to confider how many thousand would have been requifite for this editor to have inflicted on our great dramatick poet for the same purpose. The defence which has been made for Dr. Warburton on this subject, by some of his friends, is fingular. "He well knew," it has been faid, "that much the greater part of his notes do not throw any light on the poet of whose works he undertook the revision, and that he frequently imputed to Shakspeare a meaning of which he never thought; but the editor's great object was to difplay his own learning, not to illustrate his author, and this end he obtained; for in spite of all the clamour against him, his work added to his reputation as a scholar." - Be it so then; but let none of his admirers ever dare to unite his name with that of Shakspeare; and let us at least be allowed to wonder, that the learned editor should have had fo little respect for the greatest poet that has appeared fince the days of Homer, as to use a commentary on his works merely as " a stalking-horse, under the presentation of which he might shoot his wit." At length the task of revising these plays was undertaken by one, whose extraordinary powers of mind, as they rendered him the admiration of his contemporaries, will transmit his name to posterity as the brightest ornament of the eighteenth century; and will transmit it without competition, if we except a great orator, philosopher, and statefman, now living, whose talents and virtues are • The Right Honourable Edmund Burke. |