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perhaps a few particular passages, were of his hand. It is very probable what occasioned some plays to be supposed Shakspeare's, was only this; that they were pieces produced by unknown authors, or fitted up for the theatre while it was under his administration; and no owner claiming them, they were adjudged to bim, as they give strays to the lord of the manor: a mistake which (one may also observe) | it was not for the interest of the house to remove. Yet the players themselves, Heminge and Condell, afterwards did Shakspeare the justice to reject those eight plays in their edition; though they were then printed in his name, in every body's hands, and acted with some applause (as we learn from what Ben Jonson says of Pericles in his ode on the New Inn). That Titus Andronicus is one of this class I am the rather induced to believe, by finding the same author openly express his contempt of it in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair, in the year 1614, when Shakspeare was yet living. And there is no better authority for these latter sort, than for the former, which were equally published in his life-time.

If we give into this opinion, how many low and vicious parts and passages might no longer reflect upon this great genius, but appear unworthily charged upon him? And even in those which are really his, how many faults may have been unjustly laid to his account from arbitrary additions, expunctions, transpositions of scenes and lines, confusion of characters and persons, wrong application of speeches, corruptions of innumerable passages by the ignorance, and wrcag corrections of them again by the impertinence of his first editors? From one or other of these considerations, I am verily persuaded, that the greatest and the grossest part of what are thought his errors would vanish, and leave his character in a light very different from that disadvantageous one, in which it now appears to us. This is the state in which Shakspeare's writings lie at present; for since the abovementioned folio edition, all the rest have implicitly followed it, without having recourse to any of the former, or ever making the comparison between them. It is impossible to repair the injuries already done him; too much time has elapsed, and the materials are too few. In what I have done I have rather given a

proof of my willingness and desire, than of my
ability, to do him justice. I have discharged
the dull duty of an editor, to my best judgment,
with more labour than I expect thanks, with a
religious abhorrence of all innovation, and
without any indulgence to my private sense of
conjecture. The method taken in this edition
will show itself. The various readings are
fairly put in the margin, so that every one may
compare them; and those I have preferred into
the text are constantly ex fide codicum, upon
authority. The alterations or additions, which
Shakspeare himself made, are taken notice of
as they occur. Some suspected passages, which
are excessively bad (and which seem interpo-
lations by being so inserted that one can en-
tirely omit them without any chasm, or defi-
cience in the context), are degraded to the
bottom of the page, with an asterisk referring
The scenes
to the places of their insertion.
are marked so distinctly that every removal of
place is specified; which is more necessary in
this author than any other, since he shifts them
more frequently and sometimes, without at-
tending to this particular, the reader would
The more obsolete
have met with obscurities.
Some of the
or unusual words are explained.
most shining passages are distinguished by
commas in the margin; and where the beauty
lay not in particulars, but in the whole, a star is
This seems to ine a
prefixed to the scene.
shorter and less ostentatious method of perform-
ing the better half of criticism (namely, the
pointing out an author's excellencies) than to
fill a whole paper with citations of fine pas-
sages with general applauses, or empty excla-
There is also
mations at the tail of them.
subjoined a catalogue of those first editions, by
which the greater part of the various readings,
and of the corrected passages, are authorized;
most of which are such as carry their own evi-
These editions now
dence along with them.
hold the place of originals, and are the only
materials left to repair deficiencies or restore the
corrupted sense of the author: I can only wish
that a greater number of them (if a greater
were ever published) may yet be found, by a
search more successful than mine, for the better
accomplishment of this end.

I will conclude by saying of Shakspeare, that with all his faults, and with all the irregularity of his drama, one may look upon his works, in comparison of those that are more finished His name was affixed only to four of them. and regular, as upon an ancient majestic piece MALONE. of Gothic architecture, compared with a neat

modern building: the latter is more elegant | not communicate during the time wherein that

and glaring, but the former is more strong and more solemn. It must be allowed that in one of these there are materials enough to make many of the other. It has much the greater variety, and much the nobler apartments; though we are often conducted to them by dark, odd, and uncouth passages. Nor does the whole fail to strike us with greater reverence, though many of the parts are childish, ill-placed, and unequal to its grandeur.*

The following passage by Mr. Pope stands as a preface to the various readings at the end of the 8th volume of his edition of Shakspeare, 1728. For the notice of it I am indebted to Mr. Chalmers's Supplemental Apology, p. 261. REED.

"Since the publication of our first edition, there having been some attempts upon Shakspeare published by Lewis Theobald (which he would

edition was preparing for the press, when we, by
of all lovers of this author), we have inserted, in
public advertisements, did request the assistance
this impression, as many of 'em as are judg'd of
any the least advantage to the poet; the whole
amounting to about twenty-five words."
himself, we have annexed a compleat list of the
"But to the end every reader may judge for
rest; which if he shall think trivial, or erroneous,
either in part, or in whole; at worst it can spoil
but a half sheet of paper, that chances to be left
vacant here. And we purpose for the future, to
do the same with respect to any other persons,
who either thro' candor or vanity, shall commu-
nicate or publish the least things tending to the
illustration of our author. We have here omitted
which I hope the corrector of it has rectify'd; if
nothing but pointings and mere errors of the press,
not, I cou'd wish as accurate an one as Mr. Th.
Mr. Tonson to solicit him to undertake. A. P."
[if he] had been at that trouble, which I desired

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Dr. Johnson's
Preface.*

THAT praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time.

Antiquity, like every other quality that attracts the notice of mankind, has undoubtedly Votaries that reverence it, not from reason, but from prejudice. Some seem to admire indiscriminately whatever has been long preserved, without considering that time has sometimes Co-operated with chance; all perhaps are more willing to honour past than present excellence and the mind contemplates genius through the shades of age, as the eye surveys the sun through artificial opacity. The greater contention of criticism is to find the faults of the moderns, and the beauties of the ancients. While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best.

To works, however, of which the excellence is not absolute and definite, but gradual and Comparative; to works not raised upon princupies demonstrative and scientific, but appealing wholly to observation and experience, no other test can be applied than length of duration and continuance of esteem. What mankind have long possessed they have often examined and compared, and if they persist to value the possession, it is because frequent comparisons have confirmed opinion in its favour. As among the works of nature, no man can pro

*First printed separately in 1765.

| perly call a river deep, or a mountain high, without the knowledge of many mountains, and many rivers; so in the productions of genius, nothing can be styled excellent till it has been compared with other works of the same kind. Demonstration immediately displays its power, and has nothing to hope or fear from the flux of years; but works tentative and experimental must be estimated by their proportion to the general and collective ability of man, as it is discovered in a long succession of endeavours. Of the first building that was raised, it might be with certainty determined that it was round or square; but whether it was spacious or lofty must have been referred to time. The Pythagorean scale of numbers was at once discovered to be perfect; but the poems of Homer we yet know not to transcend the common limits of human intelligence, but by remarking, that nation after nation, and century after century, has been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments.

The reverence due to writings that have long subsisted arises therefore not from any credulous confidence in the superior wisdom of past ages, or gloomy persuasion of the degeneracy of mankind, but is the consequence of acknowledged and indubitable positions, that what has been longest known has been most considered, and what is most considered is best understood.

The poet, of whose works I have undertaken the revision, may now begin to assume the dignity of an ancient, and claim the privilege of established fame and prescriptive veneration. He has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit. Whatever advantages he might once derive from personal allusions, local customs, or tem

"Est vetus atque probus, centum qui perficit annos." Hor. STEEVENS.

porary opinions, have for many years been lost; and every topic of merriment or motive of sorrow, which the modes of artificial life afforded him, now only obscure the scenes which they once illuminated. The effects of favour and competition are at end; the tradition of his friendships and his enmities has perished; his works support no opinion with arguments, nor supply any faction with invectives; they can neither indulge vanity, nor gratify malignity; but are read without any other reason than the desire of pleasure, and are therefore praised only as pleasure is obtained; yet, thus unassisted by interest or passion, they have passed through variations of taste and changes of manners, and, as they devolved from one generation to another, have received new honours at every transmission.

But because human judgment, though it be gradually gaining upon certainty, never becomes infallible; and approbation, though long continued, may yet be only the approbation of prejudice or fashion; it is proper to inquire, by what peculiarities of excellence Shakspeare has gained and kept the favour of his countrymen. Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight awhile, by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth.

so much instruction is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakspeare with practical axioms and domestic wisdom. It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakspeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence. Yet his real power is not shown in the splendour of particular passages, but by the progress of his fable, and the tenor of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen.

It will not easily be imagined how much Shakspeare excels in accommodating his sentiments to real life, but by comparing him with other authors. It was observed of the ancient schools of declamation, that the more diligently they were frequented, the more was the student disqualified for the world, because he found nothing there which he should ever meet in any other place. The same remark may be applied to every stage but that of Shakspeare. The theatre, when it is under any other direction, is peopled by such characters as were never seen, conversing in a language which was never heard, upon topics which will never arise in the commerce of mankind. But the dialogue of this author is often so evidently determined by the incident which produces it, and is pursued with so much ease and simplicity, that it seems scarcely to claim the merit of fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent selection out of common conversation, and common occurrences.

Shakspeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; Upon every other stage the universal agent the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful is love, by whose power all good and evil is mirror of manners and of life. His characters distributed, and every action quickened or reare not modified by the customs of particular tarded. To bring a lover, a lady, and a rival places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by into the fable; to entangle them in contradictory the peculiarities of studies or professions, which obligations, perplex them with oppositions of can operate but upon small numbers; or by the interest, and harass them with violence of deaccidents of transient fashions or temporary sires inconsistent with each other; to make opinions they are the genuine progeny of them meet in rapture, and part in agony; to common humanity, such as the world will al- fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy and ways supply, and observation will always find. outrageous sorrow; to distress them as nothing His persons act and speak by the influence of human ever was distressed; to deliver them as those general passions and principles by which nothing human ever was delivered, is the busiall minds are agitated, and the whole system of ness of a modern dramatist. For this, prolife is continued in motion. In the writings of bability is violated, life is misrepresented, and other poets a character is too often an indivi- language is depraved. But love is only one of dual; in those of Shakspeare it is commonly a many passions, and as it has no great influence species. upon the sum of life, it has little operation in It is from this wide extension of design that the dramas of a poet, who caught his ideas

from the living world, and exhibited only what he saw before him. He knew, that any other passion, as it was regular or exorbitant, was a cause of happiness or calamity.

Characters thus ample and general were not easily discriminated and preserved, yet perhaps no poet ever kept his personages more distinct from each other. I will not say with Pope, that every speech may be assigned to the proper speaker, because many speeches there are which have nothing characteristical; but, perhaps, though some may be equally adapted to every person, it will be difficult to find any that can be properly transferred from the present possessors to another claimant. The choice is right, when there is reason for choice.

Other dramatists can only gain attention by hyperbolical or aggravated characters, by fabulous and unexampled excellence or depravity, as the writers of barbarous romances invigorated the reader by a giant and a dwarf; and he that should form his expectation of human affairs from the play, or from the tale, would be equally deceived. Shakspeare has no heroes; his scenes are occupied only by men, who act and speak as the reader thinks that he should himself have spoken or acted on the same occasion; even where the agency is supernatural, the dialogue is level with life. Other writers disguise the most natural passions and most frequent incidents; so that he who contemplates them in the book will not know them in the world: Shakspeare approximates the remote, and familiarizes the wonderful; the event which be represents will not happen, but if it were possible, its effects would probably be such as be has assigned; and it may be said, that he has not only shown human nature as it acts in real exigencies, but as it would be found in trials, to which it cannot be exposed.

This therefore is the praise of Shakspeare, that his drama is the mirror of life; that he who has mazed his imagination, in following the phantoms which other writers raise up before bim, may here be cured of his delirious ecstasies; by reading human sentiments in human language; by scenes from which a hermit may estimate the transactions of the world, and a confessor predict the progress of the passions.

His adherence to general nature has exposed him to the censure of critics, who form their Judgments upon narrower principles. Dennis

**Quærit quod nusquam est gentium, reperit tamen, Facit illud verisimile quod mendacium est."

Planti, Pseudolus, Act I. sc. iv. STEEVENS.

and Rymer think his Romans not sufficiently Roman, and Voltaire censures his kings as not completely royal. Dennis is offended, that Menenius, a senator of Rome, should play the buffoon; and Voltaire perhaps thinks decency violated when the Danish usurper is represented as a drunkard. But Shakspeare always makes nature predominate over accident; and if he preserves the essential character, is not very careful of distinctions superinduced and adventitious. His story requires Romans or kings, but he thinks only on men. He knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of all dispositions; and wanting a buffoon, he went into the senate-house for that which the senatehouse would certainly have afforded him. He was inclined to show an usurper and a murderer not only odious, but despicable; he therefore added drunkenness to his other qualities, knowing that kings love wine like other men, and that wine exerts its natural power upon kings. These are the petty cavils of petty minds; a poet overlooks the casual distinction of country and conditions, as a painter, satisfied with the figure, neglects the drapery.

The censure which he has incurred by mixing comic and tragic scenes, as it extends to all his works, deserves more consideration. Let the fact be first stated, and then examined.

Shakspeare's plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveler is hasting to his wine, and themourner burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolic of another: and many mischiefs and many benefits are done and hindered without design.

Out of this chaos of mingled purposes and casualities, the ancient poets, according to the laws which custom had prescribed, selected some the crimes of men, and some their absurdities; some the momentous vicissitudes of life, and some the lighter occurrences; some the terrors of distress, and some the gaieties of prosperity. Thus rose the two modes of imitation, known by the names of tragedy and comedy, compositions intended to promote different ends by contrary means, and considered as so little allied, that I do not recollect

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