If Mr. Malone had himself brought to a final completion the work upon which he had been for so many years assiduously employed, the name of that distinguished critick would have been a sufficient recommendation; and I should not have thought it necessary to attract the publick attention by any prefatory observations. But as this unfortunately was not the case, the reader may expect to be told, under what circumstances, and with what pretensions, the present editor appears before him, and what are the advantages which are supposed to be derived from the work he has undertaken to superintend. I will, as briefly as I can, supply this explanation.

The long and intimate friendship which subsisted between my father and Mr. Malone, introduced me to his acquaintance at a very early period of life; and in every succeeding portion of it I am bound to retain the most affectionate and grateful recollection of his uniform and uninterrupted kindness. When more advanced years had rendered me less unworthy of his society, I was permitted to enjoy it in the most unreserved and confidential manner, and was made a partaker of his literary views and

sentiments. It may well be imagined that in such an intercourse, the works of our immortal poet would be a topick of pretty frequent occurrence; and when he was finally preparing the result of his researches on that subject for the press, he availed himself of my assistance in the collection and arrangement of his scattered materials, which the gradual failure of his eyesight made every day more irksome and difficult to himself. From being in this way connected with his labours, he was accustomed sometimes, in a half-jocular tone, to say, that if any thing should prevent him from bringing them to a conclusion, that task must devolve upon me; but in his last illness he made this request to me in such terms, that I must have felt ashamed of myself for ever after, if I had hesitated for a moment in promising to execute his wishes to the utmost of my power. I am by no means disposed to deny that there are many who might have been more fitly selected for such a trust, from more extensive knowledge of the topicks which such a work must embrace, and a longer experience in antiquarian research; but in some respects I had opportunities which did not fall to any other person's share. From constant communication with him on the subject of his opinions, I was better able to ascertain his final judgment on many contested points which occur in the illustration of our author's text, which, without that guidance, might have been frequently doubtful. As truth was the only object which he ever had in view, he was accustomed to note down every passage which he met with in his reading, whether it tended to fortify his own opinion, or add strength to that of his opponents, reserving them for future selection. To have given them all, would have swelled these volumes to an immeasurable size; and to have drawn my own conclusion, would have been “making one man write by the judgment of another:” a liberty which Dr. Johnson has observed no pretence can justify. I may add, that it is not every one that could have deciphered his notes. When he was not hurried he wrote a

very clear and an elegant hand; but as his memory was far from tenacious, when any thing occurred which he thought might prove of use, he was in the habit of using the first scrap of paper which presented itself, and marking down his memoranda in a species of short hand, of which no one, who was not accustomed to his manner, could readily comprehend the meaning. I am far from pretending to say that, with all the advantages I enjoyed, I can hope to remedy the many imperfections which must unavoidably occur, when the mind which collected information can no longer superintend its disclosure; and in some of the most important parts of his investigations, a chasm must be left which I am unable to supply; yet still I can, with confidence, assert, that enough will remain to justify the publick expectation, and gratify the admirers of our greatest poet. Whatever may be the defects that shall be discovered in that portion of the work which has devolved upon me, which, I am aware, are many, and fear that more may be found, yet I trust to the candour of the reader, that he will keep in his recollection the circumstances which I have stated, and will not consider me as having thrust myself upon this employment from any over-weening confidence in my own abilities; but as having undertaken it as a task in compliance with the last wishes of an ever dear friend. While the merits of this edition are to be ascribed to Mr. Malone, I need scarcely add that I am not responsible for the erroneous opinions which it contains, if such there be. There were several points upon which I was so far from coinciding with my late friend, that they have frequently led us into friendly controversy. I have felt myself bound to exhibit his sentiments, whether I thought them right or wrong, and should not have deemed myself justified in imposing upon the reader, when I laid before him what purported to be the work of Mr. Malone, a critick of high and established fame, by substituting opinions of my own; nor have I, in general, added to these commentaries, too voluminous

already, by expressing my dissent; yet I confess that in the course of the long labours which I have had to undergo, I have not been able entirely to refrain from occasionally appearing in my own person; but I trust that in this respect I shall not be found to have been unreasonably or ostentatiously obtrusive. According to the plan laid down by Mr. Malone, I have inserted all the notes of his predecessors, although I am ready to admit that some of them might well have been spared. And here again I request it may be understood that my passing them over in silence, is not to be considered as acquiescing in their propriety. When, for instance, Mr. Ritson observes, that the reading of the quarto in Hamlet's celebrated soliloquy,

is better: I should not wish it to be thought that I adopt his explanation, “The allusion is to the pitching or throwing the bar—a manly exercise used in country villages.” In a very few instances I have ventured to take the liberty of expunging a note where Shakspeare has, I think, most perversely and injuriously been charged with an irreverent allusion to Scripture. When Proteus, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, says to Speed, among many quibbles upon the word sheep, “Nay, in that you are astray; 'twere best pound you!” what but the very cacoethes of commenting could lead any one to suppose, with Dr. Henley, that the poet had in view the general confession of sins in the liturgy? I am confident that it is from illustrations such as these that Shakspeare has laid under the heavy imputation of prophaneness, much more than from any offences of that kind of which he has really been guilty; but even if such had been his meaning, it is surely much better that it should be passed over than pointed out. There are some annotations reprehensible in another point of view, which I should gladly have omitted, but they have so long retained their places, that such an expurgatory liberty seemed to me to be going beyond the bounds

of my “limited service.” I have, however, been scrupulous in not adding to their number.

But while I am ready to acknowledge with Mr. Steevens (who, by the way, at the very time when he made this remark, was adding more copiously to his notes, and indulging to a greater extent in collateral discussions, than any other critick), that among the defects of the later editions of Shakspeare, may be reckoned an exuberance of comment; yet I cannot but think that this charge has been advanced with too much exaggeration. We have been told by a distinguished contemporary, that passages are explained in which no man, woman, or child, could have found any difficulty. But if we look to the editions of Pope and Johnson, we shall frequently meet with mistakes which would be obvious to persons of the slightest acquirements in the present day. It will certainly not be maintained that the great mass of mankind are endowed with more natural perspicacity than the two illustrious individuals whom I have named; and hence their superior intelligence must be attributed to their having access to new sources of information in the collected labours of those who have since investigated the poet's works; and therefore, even if in a few instances, somewhat more information has been bestowed than was absolutely required, it is rather an ungrateful return, on the part of living readers, to speak with contempt of criticks, by whose assistance they have been elevated above those so much their superiors in natural size. It has also been objected, that illustrations of obsolete phrases and manners from Shakspeare's contemporaries, have been too lavishly brought forward; but it may admit of a question whether this has not been, in some degree, compensated by the effect which it has had no small share in producing on the general literature of the country, by drawing the attention of the publick, much more than was generally the case at any former period, to the neglected writers of an early age. The slightest reference which

can be drawn from the works of Shakspeare to a forgotten poet, has had the effect of a stone thrown from the hand of Deucalion, and raised him at once into life. This may perhaps have been carried too far, and the zeal which has been exerted in collecting all the remains of the Elizabethan age, may perhaps, in some cases, have been inordinate; but it is surely preferable to the ignorance which prevailed on this subject not more than a century ago, when the knowledge of our literature was confined within so narrow a compass, that as far as intellectual eminence was concerned, we appeared to be a nation of yesterday. Our early writers, with all the faults of an untutored taste, had merits sufficient to redeem them from the oblivion to which they had been consigned. They were marble in the quarry, it is true, but still they were marble, and formed of those durable materials, which have at length obtained for English genius, that rank in Europe which the feebler muse of France had so long exclusively and unjustly usurped.

It was the object of Mr. Malone, from which he never deviated, to furnish the reader, as far as it was possible, with the author's unsophisticated text. In acting upon this principle he had at first the concurrence and even the example of Mr. Steevens to guide him. They both professed to follow the old copies with scrupulous fidelity, except where a clear necessity compelled them to depart from the readings which they supplied. To this plan it will be found Mr. Malone has still steadily adhered, while his rival critick has latterly adopted maxims directly contrary to the opinions which he formerly maintained. Corruptions have been supposed to exist in the phraseology of Shakspeare, which, in some instances, are not altogether obsolete in the present day; and the free versification of the poet has been lengthened or curtailed as suited the commentator's caprice, to bring it within the strict regularity which has been enjoined by the school of Pope. In proposing these corrections, as Mr. Steevens endeavours

to represent them, and in pointing out the fancied errors of the earlier copies, he has generally had recourse to ridicule, a weapon of which he was as fond, as he was skilful in its use. This mode of discussion gave him great advantages when the passages upon which it arose were scattered throughout a number of volumes, from which a great proportion of readers would be unwilling to take the pains of collecting a system of criticism for themselves; but would rather be content with acquiescing in opinions so pleasantly and humorously conveyed. Mr. Malone, to obviate this effect (in some measure, I believe, at my recommendation), determined to bring these topicks into one connected view, and therefore prepared materials for an express Essay on the Metre and Phraseology of Shakspeare, in which he had made considerable progress, but which, I am sorry to say, he did not live to complete. I have taken some pains upon this subject, and have ventured to add the result of my reading to what my friend has left behind him. In another department of this work I have put myself to a good deal of unnecessary trouble, if the decision of Mr. Steevens should be considered as well founded, where he has ridiculed the notion that any advantage was to be derived from further and more accurate collation of the text; but upon this subject I must presume to say, that I cannot consider him as the best authority. Whatever were the qualities necessary for an editor which he possessed, and it would not be easy to point out a man who had more, yet he laboured under a marked deficiency in this respect, from the very first commencement of his critical career. His republication of the early quartos of Shakspeare in 1766, is one of the most grossly incorrect performances that I have ever seen; and his edition of our poet's plays, in conjunction with Dr. Johnson in 1773, was scarcely less objectionable. The following passage from the advertisement which he then prefixed, see p. 173, will show his notions of the unimportance of collation; and will enable me to apprize

the reader of the different view which I have taken of an editor's duty. “The dialogue might indeed be sometimes lengthened by yet other insertions then have been made, but without advantage either to its spirit or beauty; as in the following instance:—[Lear, Act II. Sc. IV.]

“Here the quartos add:

“By the admission of this negation and affirmation, would any new idea be gained?” If it were the object of a dramatick writer to convey his ideas with all possible brevity, I should allow the force of this interrogation; but it should be left to the reader to determine whether this iteration of words, without any additional meaning, does not give us a more lively picture of the cholerick monarch, and the blunt freedom which characterizes the faithful Kent. Mr. Steevens, however, seems to have altered his opinion in this instance; for in his subsequent edition of 1778, these unimportant words are admitted into the text. In the commencement of Hamlet's interview with Ophelia, I have printed in the body of the work what Mr. Malone appears to have selected as the preferable reading, that of the quarto:

But I have pointed out in the margin, that the folio gives this passage with the word well twice repeated, because others may think with myself, that this iteration is naturally suited to the irritable state of Hamlet's perturbed mind. As I have by no means set down all the variations,

or even the greater part of them, which occur in the different copies, for in that case, how few would have the patience to examine so copious a list with any degree of attention, I shall here explain the rules by which I have been guided in making a selection. In Romeo and Juliet, where the earliest quarto has all the appearance of being an imperfect sketch by the author himself, I have given the various readings very much in detail, as it is a matter of interesting curiosity, should this conjecture be correct, to trace the progress of his mind from his first thoughts to his more improved conceptions. In other plays, wherever I thought there might be a doubt with the reader, as to which copy had given most correctly what the author was likely to have written, I have afforded him an opportunity of judging for himself, by laying both before him. In the old editions we perpetually find a plural substantive governing a singular verb, which has generally been corrected by all the modern criticks, Mr. Malone among the rest; perhaps with some inconsistency on his part, as he has, on other occasions, contended in favour of phraseology as far removed from modern usage; but, that the reader may be aware of the nature of the alterations which have been made, I have, in some of the earlier plays, exhibited a few of these supposed grammatical anomalies; which, however, I am inclined to think were neither the blunders of a printer, nor the mistakes of a careless writer; but consonant to the universal practice of that age, even among the learned. Where a word is to be met with either in the folio or quarto, which by no error of the press could have been substituted for another, but which the commentators have passed over unnoticed, as it should seem, from their not discovering any meaning which it could bear, I have thought it the more necessary for that very reason, to put it in the view of those who might be better able to explain it. Thus in Troilus and Cressida, where Nestor says, addressing Hector:

“And I have seen thee pause, and take thy breath,
“When that a ring of Greeks have hemm'd thee in”—

For hemm'd the quarto has shrupt, which is, I confess, to me, unintelligible; but in the same manner, beteem in Hamlet,

was for a long period supposed to be a corruption, till a passage in Golding's Ovid ascertained that it was a word of our author's time. This, indeed, is one of the principal advantages derived from exhibiting our collations. The earlier copies are of rare occurrence, and can only be procured by a fortunate chance, or at an immoderate price; but it by no means follows, that those alone who have access to those expensive rarities, are capable of using what they contain. A gentleman residing in one of the remote counties of England, from that very circumstance is much more likely to explain to us the meaning of a term, which, although from the changes that our language has undergone, it may now be confined to a particular province, may formerly have been in general use throughout the country. There are some passages which, after all that has been said upon them, are still in want of a satisfactory interpretation: of this, Iago's contemptuous mention of Cassio, “a fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife,” may be produced as an instance. It may possibly be a corruption, and if so, the original spelling dambd should be preserved as a guide to critical conjecture. In a very few instances I have given readings, both from the folio and the quarto, which have nothing to recommend them, but are palpably and sometimes ludicrously erroneous: I have done so, in order to show how necessary it is to collate them all, and how ill founded are the assertions of those who, like the late Mr. Horne Tooke, being possessed of no other ancient copy than the first folio, have endeavoured to contend for its exclusive authority.

In speaking of the sources from which the means of ascertaining the authentick text of Shakspeare, may, with the greatest probability be derived, it will be necessary to say a few words upon the question which has been long agitated between Mr. Malone and Mr. Steevens, with respect to the comparative merits of the first and second folio. Mr. Malone, from a careful examination of those two copies, which enabled him to discover a number of corruptions in the latter edition, evidently as he thought arising from the editor's ignorance of our poet's phraseology, determined to reject it, as an authority altogether, while, notwithstanding, he was willing to admit into his text, corrections of typographical errors, or other suggestions which recommended themselves, by their own probability; in the same way as he adopted a few of the emendations of Pope or Hanmer, although he considered those criticks as having in general unwarrantably sophisticated the poet's text. Mr. Steevens, on the contrary, not only has upheld throughout the superiority of the second folio, but has availed himself of every opportunity to speak with the most unqualified contempt of, what he terms, its blundering predecessor. With an adroitness peculiar to himself in controversy, he has endeavoured to show Mr. Malone in contradiction to himself, by pointing out the many instances in which Mr. Malone has adopted the readings of that very edition which he has so much decried. There is something which at first appears to carry great weight with it in the seeming accuracy of an arithmetical statement; and accordingly, with the assistance of Mr. Plymsell (see his Preface, p. 272,) he has laid before the reader a list of no less than 186 passages, in which the aid of that copy has been resorted to. He has not, however, thought it necessary to mention how many of these adopted corrections were words, and even letters accidentally dropped out at the press, which it required no very great portion of skill or industry to discover and amend;

and when this seemingly large number is divided among thirty-four plays, it will be found that the average proportion to each, even of these slight emendations, will not appear to be very considerable. If, on the other hand, we were to enumerate the instances in which the second folio has been deserted by Mr. Steevens himself, we shall form a still less estimate of its value. I cannot say that I have undertaken the same laborious investigation that Mr. Plymsell has gone through; but in a cursory inspection of King Lear, I have discovered ten of them in the first act alone. It is not easy to suppose that this could have happened if the second folio had corrected the defects of the first from early manuscripts or authentick information* ^note. Mr. Steevens intimates his opinion, that when Mr. Malone speaks of the editor of this republication, he is pointing his artillery at a phantom; “for perhaps no such literary agent as an editor of a poetical work, unaccompanied by comments, was at that period to be found.” He adds, that “this office, if any where, was vested in the printer, who transferred it to his compositors; and these worthies discharged their part of the trust with a proportionate mixture of ignorance and inattention† ^note.” He proceeds, in the following page, to describe, in still stronger terms, their utter insufficiency for their employment. But if this were the case, how are we to account for the other part of his theory? Who was it that collected the authentick information, or examined the early manuscripts of which he has so confidently spoken? Where was that “judicious hand” which regulated the grammatical anomalies, and smoothed the metre which had been left in so rugged a state by Heminges and Condell in the original publication? More, however, on this subject, will be met with in the list of the early editions of our poet, vol. ii. where the reader will find Mr. Malone's

conjectures as to who this person was. In publishing this edition of Shakspeare, the plan laid down by Mr. Malone was, to exhibit all his dramas in what he considered to be, from the best judgment he could form, their chronological order, that the reader might be thus enabled to trace the progress of the author's powers, from his first and imperfect essays, to those more finished performances which he afterwards produced. I have adopted that arrangement as far as his miscellaneous plays are concerned; but found it universally objected to by all whom I had an opportunity to consult, if it were made to comprehend the plays which were founded on English history. I have therefore, thus far, ventured to deviate from my late friend's intention, and have placed the historical plays in a separate class. Enough will still remain to fulfil the object which Mr. Malone had in view. The Tempest will no longer precede The Two Gentlemen of Verona and the Comedy of Errors, by which those who were not attentive to dates, might have been led to form very erroneous conclusions as to the inequality of Shakspeare's genius.

We shall now find his powers gradually developed as his knowledge became more extensive, and his judgment matured. In his first essays he will appear seemingly unconscious of his strength, assimilating himself, in some degree, to the models before him. Soon after we see him with “casted slough and fresh legerity,” entering upon a hitherto untrodden path, creating, as it were, anew the drama of his country, and exhibiting a brilliancy of fancy, an energy, and a pathos, which till now had been unknown upon our stage. Advancing in his progress to excellence, we shall probably be led to fix upon the middle period of his life, as the time when his genius was at its meridian. The productions that followed, although every way worthy of their great author, yet still fell short of that fervid inspiration to which we owe those wonderful performances, which, according to Mr. Malone's hypothesis,

are ascribed to a period from about the thirty-fourth to the forty-first year of his life. The mind may, indeed, repose with delight upon the mild splendour of the Tempest; but in claiming for Shakspeare the title of the sovereign of the drama, as the first of our criticks has styled him, we must look to Hamlet, Othello, and Lear, and, above all, to the flood of glory which bursts upon us from Macbeth. Here it will be gratifying to pause for a moment, and to contemplate the gradual increase of our great poet's reputation during the course of the second century which has elapsed since his death. Even at the time when Johnson wrote his admirable preface, not only was the knowledge of his excellence almost wholly confined to his own countrymen, but even among them there were not a few who were disposed to adopt, in some degree, the petty objections which had been thrown out by the spleen of Voltaire; and the alterations which Garrick, in the spirit of French criticism, presumed to make in Hamlet, of which a fuller account is given in the second volume, will tend to show how imperfectly he was understood by one of his warmest admirers. If we go back to an earlier period, we shall find the general reader still less acquainted with his merits, till at last we revert to that age of critical darkness, when he was reviled by Rymer, and patronized by Tate. If an Englishman of the present day were to indulge in such ribaldry as the first of these two persons poured forth upon Othello, he would nearly run a risk of meeting with the punishment of Zoilus. Nor is it among our own countrymen alone that his superiority is now acknowledged. Even in France, which has always been remarkable for a bigotted attachment to its own literature, a tardy and unwilling tribute has been paid to the genius of Shakspeare; but it is in Germany, above all, that the highest enthusiasm has been excited on the subject of his works. The most distinguished writers of that country have contended with each other in offering homage to

his name, among whom we are bound particularly to notice M. Schlegel. I am far from saying that I adopt all that critick's opinions; nor can I think that such a man would estimate very highly either the sincerity or value of indiscriminate praise. It must be matter of astonishment, that one who so well appreciates the genuine works of Shakspeare, could be led, for a moment, to suppose that such trash as Locrine and Lord Cromwell proceeded from his pen. They are evidently not only unworthy of the great name to which they have been ascribed, but are scarcely even the productions of the second-rate poets of that day. Other objections may be made to M. Schlegel. He is sometimes perhaps too refined; and too enthusiastick for our colder and more didactick style of criticism; there is, occasionally, too much metaphysical curiosity in his analysis; he is inclined to make Shakspeare, who wrote for the people, too much of a poetical mystick; in short, he has endeavoured to give him more of a German cast of thinking than really belonged to him; but after all the deductions which candour can make, there will still remain sufficient ground for the general admiration which has been bestowed upon a work at once so eloquent and so profound.

But to return to humbler topicks: I must say a few words as to the arrangement adopted in the following volumes. In the first I have printed the prefaces which have been prefixed to the modern editions of the poet, among which Mr. Rowe's Life, as being partly prefatory and partly biographical, may be classed. Notwithstanding its defects in the second point of view, I should not have thought myself justified in omitting it altogether; but it will no longer be found accompanied with notes, which were written for the purpose of demolishing almost every statement which it contained. These are now incorporated in Mr. Malone's more extensive and correct work on the same subject. The remainder of the volume is occupied by various critical dissertations on our author's works, among which the reader will find an Essay on the Phraseology

and Metre of Shakspeare; and the Commendatory Poems. These were originally destined for the second volume, which, however, became of so unexpected a bulk, that I was compelled to alter my arrangement, that I might not add to its already disproportioned size. As I was anxious that the work altogether should not in its compass exceed the later editions of Mr. Steevens, notwithstanding the accession of much additional matter, I have been induced to print this part of it in a rather smaller type. The second volume contains Mr. Malone's Life of Shakspeare, accompanied by explanatory documents; a list of the early editions of his works, more fully described than heretofore; and other matters relating to the poet's history. The Essay on the Chronology of Shakspeare's Plays was originally distinct; and I cannot, with confidence, say that Mr. Malone would not have so continued it: but it appeared to me, that the life of a writer must be strangely defective which contained no account of his works; and I have, therefore, ventured to give it a place as one of the sections of Mr. Malone's Biography. The reader, I have no doubt, will derive no small satisfaction from the many curious particulars which my late friend's research enabled him to collect upon this subject; yet I cannot but lament that much has unquestionably been lost, which, had he lived to superintend this edition himself, he would have furnished. It was his intention to have devoted one section to the manners and customs of Shakspeare's time; but I found the materials which he had prepared for this enquiry in so loose and disjointed a state, that I could not have ventured upon the labour of arranging them without protracting the publication of this work to a distant period. I may remark that his memoranda did not appear to relate to matters which had any direct reference to what bears upon the drama; but are rather illustrative of the general political state of the country. I need scarcely add, that, although I was unable, for the reason I have stated, to make use of his collections on this subject, at

least for the present, I have scrupulously abstained from destroying a single scrap of his literary remains. The third volume contains the History of the Stage, with his own corrections, and the addition of some very curious new matter. Some valuable documents which had escaped my attention at the time when this part of the work was printed off, are preserved among the Addenda, in the twenty-first volume. Those who are interested in dramatick history, and are fond of tracing our early literature in its rudest form, will unite with me in expressing their satisfaction that my friend, Mr. Markland, has permitted me to lay before the publick, upon this occasion, his valuable Essay on the Chester Mysteries. I have also retained the extracts which Mr. Reed had given from Mr. Chalmers. The succeeding sixteen volumes are appropriated to the plays. The text has been printed according to the principle laid down by Mr. Malone, of adhering as strictly as possible to the ancient copies; and wherever they are deviated from, the reader is apprised of the alteration, and of the reasons upon which it is founded. The numerous sophistications introduced by Mr. Steevens have been removed; but it has not been thought necessary to enter into a contest about each individual passage; as the system upon which he proceeded is sufficiently discussed in the Essay on Phraseology and Metre. I have, therefore, for the most part, considered it sufficient to head those notes in which the original text has been disturbed, with the reading which he wished to substitute, that the reader may have a full opportunity of fixing his own value upon those supposed improvements. In some of Mr. Steevens's comments, and, in a very few instances, in those of Mr. Malone, the reader will find an insertion which it is proper to explain. The suggestions of Mr. Jennens of Gopsal, and of Mr. Capell, having sometimes been adopted without acknowledgment; wherever I discovered that such was the case, I have consulted brevity, while I was at the same time willing to do those criticks justice, by merely putting these words between

brackets [“as Mr. Capell,” or “as Mr. Jennens, has observed.”] I may have omitted, perhaps, to have traced Mr. Capell's prior claim upon some occasions; for I confess that I have often shrunk from the great and often fruitless labour of attempting to discover his meaning* ^note

have been endless to have bestowed upon him in detail. The twentieth volume contains the poems of Shakspeare, carefully printed from the original copies, an addition to the work of which the gibes of Mr. Steevens will not, I am confident, diminish the value. In the last volume Titus Andronicus and Pericles are preserved; but by being placed after the poems, are thus distinguished from what are acknowledged on all hands to have been entirely the genuine productions of our author, excepting the three parts of Henry VI., which have been suffered to retain their place as forming part of the historical series. Some Addenda follow, and the whole is concluded with a new glossarial index. In this, the humblest, but perhaps not the least useful department of the work, I have introduced what I hope will be considered as improvements. In the glossarial index of former editions, the reader has merely been presented with a long list of words, and references to the passages where they occur, often with very different meanings; and is thus called upon to roam over many volumes, in order to form a glossary for himself. I have thought that it would diminish his labour, though not a little adding to my own, if, wherever the various commentators agree in their explanation of a term, I affixed that explanation in the index; where they differ, I have not assumed the office of a judge, but have left the reader to decide for himself. In other points also I have deviated from my predecessors. Their index contained only the words which were found in the text, whether selected from conflicting copies, or modern emendations. Upon this plan, if the reading of the quartos is preferred, that of the folio is passed over unnoticed; and if both are discarded, they are no longer to be found in what derives its value from being an exhibition of Shakspearian phraseology. Thus, if we wish to find where a contested passage is to be met with, such as the line in Antony and Cleopatra—

we shall find no such word as armgaunt in Mr. Steevens's index, but only termagant, which has, most erroneously, in my opinion, been substituted in its place. I have given throughout the readings of both the folio and quartos, as far as their variations were of sufficient importance to be mentioned in the notes or the margin.

To this edition an engraving from what is commonly known by the name of the Chandos portrait of Shakspeare, now in the possession of the Marquis of Buckingham, has been prefixed. The history of that picture will be found towards the close of Mr. Malone's Life of the Poet; but it will be necessary to say a few words in reply to the arguments (if such they may be called) with which Mr. Steevens has endeavoured to call in question its authenticity, but which never were brought forward till it had been engraved with more than former care and elegance for Mr. Malone's edition in 1790. It has been traced, as is fully stated by Mr. Malone in the passage already referred to, through the Duke of Chandos to his father-in-law, Mr. Nicoll; thence to Mr. Keck, a very curious collector; thence to Mrs. Barry; thence to Mr. Betterton, who procured it after the death of Sir William D'Avenant, to whom it had belonged. Such a chain of traditional evidence is seldom to be found in pedigrees of this description; and therefore Mr. Steevens, resorting to his usual weapon of ridicule, has endeavoured to weaken it by forming its links into a ludicrous compound, and styling this portrait the D'Avenantico-Bettertonian-Barryan-Keckian-Nicolcian-Chandosan canvas* ^note. The last word is printed by him in italicks, in order to intimate that the picture being painted on that material, is a proof of its not being genuine. I have the authority of the present accomplished President of the Royal Academy for saying

that such a remark is wholly groundless. That no such portrait could have belonged to D'Avenant, is attempted to be shown by a humorous denial of the tradition handed down to us by Aubrey, that Sir William was our poet's son; and a pleasant remark by Mr. Warton is quoted, that “he cannot suppose Shakspeare to have been the father of a Doctor of Divinity, that never laughed;” which only goes to prove that Shakspeare could not have been the father of D'Avenant's brother. But without giving any credence to this antiquated scandal (for the truth of which I have certainly no wish to contend), Sir William was certainly Shakspeare's god-son; was likely, without any connection of this sort, to have been desirous of obtaining his resemblance, from admiration of his genius; and so nearly his contemporary as to have the means of ascertaining, either by his own recollection, or from others, how far it was correct. Of Betterton, Mr. Steevens has said nothing, but proceeds per saltum to the purchase of this picture by Mr. Keck from Mrs. Barry. “The possession of somewhat more animated than canvas, might have been included, though not specified in a bargain with an actress of acknowledged gallantry.” It is difficult to deal with an argument that only supposes that something might have happened; but it may as fairly be observed, that a picture is not generally thrown into the bargain in negociations of this nature. The authority of Sir Joshua Reynolds is covertly introduced against the authenticity of this portrait, he having, we are told, “suggested that whatever person it was designed for, it might have been left, as it now appears, in an unfinished state* ^note!” In opposition to this insinuation, Mr. Malone has remarked, that when, by the permission of the Duke of Chandos, he had a drawing from the original, made by Mr. Ozias Humphrey, Sir Joshua was frequently present during its progress, and himself, although this portrait is said to have been “the

shadow of a shade,” contrived to produce a copy of it, without any supplement whatever, for Dr. Newton, the Bishop of Bristol, which Mr. Malone afterwards purchased; and during the long intimacy which subsisted between my late friend and that great painter, never intimated a suspicion that this portrait was not a genuine representation of Shakspeare.

Mr. Steevens was satisfied for some years with decrying all the existing portraits of Shakspeare, but latterly adopted a new hypothesis; and having rejected the Chandos canvas, as not having sufficient evidence in its favour, advanced the pretensions of another portrait, which confessedly was not supported by any evidence at all, but, on the contrary, was ushered into the world with a story which he himself has shown to be false* ^note. The whole circumstances attending its discovery, which are detailed in Mr. Richardson's Proposals† ^note, will forcibly remind us of Mr. Steevens's own words, when speaking of the Chandos portrait, but which are much more applicable to that which he endeavoured to recommend to the publick. “Much respect is due to the authority of portraits that descend in families from heir to heir; but little reliance can be placed on them when they are produced for sale (as in the present instance) by alien hands, almost a century after the death of the person supposed to be represented; and then (as Edmund says in King Lear), ‘come pat, like the catastrophe of the old comedy.’ Shakspeare was buried in 1616; and in 1708 the first notice of this picture occurs. Where there is such a chasm in evidence, the validity of it may well be questioned, and especially by those who remember a species of fraudulence recorded in Mr. Foote's Taste, “Clap Lord Dupe's arms on that half-length of Erasmus; I have sold it him as his great grand-father's third brother, for

fifty guineas* ^note.” In support of the Felton portrait, another century must be added to the demands made upon our credulity; and the patching and doctoring which this picture required before any thing could be made of it, will not, perhaps, place its authority on a much higher ground than that of Lord Dupe's ancestor. There are not, indeed, wanting those who suspect that Mr. Steevens was better acquainted with the history of its manufacture, and that there was a deeper meaning in his words, when he tells us, “he was instrumental in procuring it† ^note,” than he would have wished to be generally understood; and that the fabricator of the Hardiknutian tablet had been trying his ingenuity upon a more important scale. My venerable friend, the late Mr. Bindley, of the Stamp-office, was reluctantly persuaded, by his importunity, to attest his opinion in favour of this picture, which he did in deference to the judgment of one so well acquainted with Shakspeare; but happening to glance his eye upon Mr. Steevens's face, he instantly perceived, by the triumph depicted in the peculiar expression of his countenance, that he had been deceived. If any thing more were necessary to destroy its credit, it would be found in what he himself has stated—that it was seen by Lord Leicester, and Horace Walpole [Lord Orford], who both believed it to be genuine; yet neither of them would purchase it for five pounds!! The proprietors of this edition were not desirous of having it re-engraved, and I had no wish to give further currency to what Mr. Malone did not hesitate to declare a fabrication, although I have preserved Mr. Steevens's amusing essays in its defence. The publick, however, naturally feel anxious to be put in possession of any thing which purports upon probable grounds to exhibit to us the features of gentle Shakspeare; and, therefore, it is with great satisfaction that I have prefixed to the second volume of this work, an engraving from a miniature, in the possession of Sir James Bland Burges,

which infinitely better judges than myself have pronounced to bear the strongest marks of authenticity. The account which I received of it from Sir James, I will take the liberty to subjoin in his own words:

Having, by the kindness of Sir James, been indulged with the loan of this miniature for some time, I submitted

it to the inspection of many of the most distinguished members of the Royal Academy, and to several antiquarian friends. In consequence of their decision in its favour, I have availed myself of the kind liberality of its possessor; and an engraving from it, through the recommendation of Sir Thomas Lawrence and Mr. Phillips, has been procured from that excellent artist Mr. Agar. In addition to this, a representation of the poet's bust at Stratford will adorn the present edition.

Mr. Steevens, for reasons which he has assigned* ^note, but which I can by no means think satisfactory, has omitted, in his later editions, a list of errata. “It has been customary (says he) with not a few authors, to acknowledge small mistakes, that they might escape the suspicion of greater, or, perhaps, to intimate that no greater could be detected.” That a duty has by some persons been imperfectly performed, is no sufficient reason why others should neglect it altogether; nor can the deceit, which he insinuates has sometimes been practised, render it less incumbent on an honest editor to correct the errors, into which he may have fallen, when they come to his knowledge. I gladly avail myself of his appeal to the candour of the reader, who, if he is at all acquainted with the press, must be aware of the difficulties attending upon the publication of a voluminous work, which, on the present occasion, would have given rise to many more mistakes, had I not been, throughout, assisted by the diligence and acuteness of my corrector of the press, Mr. Woodham. Among them, I am obliged to reckon some defects, arising from haste, which I have discovered in my own style. A table of errata will be given at the close of the last volume; but with no assumption, on my part, that more may not yet be found; I can only say that I have done all which an inexperienced eye would furnish me with the means of doing.

It was my wish and intention to have abstained, in the

course of this work, from every thing like controversial discussion of the critical merits of Mr. Malone: his reputation is too well established to require my support. I remember the sensible adage of Bentley, which no one more fully exemplified than that illustrious scholar, that “no man is written down but by himself;” and I was willing to rest contented with what poor Ritson threw out, as what he considered a stroke of double satire, that the publick and Mr. Malone appeared to entertain a reciprocal good opinion of each other* ^note. Indepedently of this general rule which I have laid down, I had clearly no concern with any of the various publications in which he was attacked during his life-time; which he had read, and which he might himself have answered, if he had thought it worth his while. But since his death a work has come forth of such acknowledged excellence in other respects, and proceeding from a writer of such literary eminence, containing remarks of such a nature, that I cannot feel myself justified in passing them over in total silence.

Mr. Malone entertained a very high regard for Mr. Gifford: he admired his talents, but he respected him still more for the principles, congenial with his own, which directed him in their application: it was with singular satisfaction that he availed himself of an opportunity of affording him literary assistance; when he had certainly no reason to complain of the terms in which his courtesy was acknowledged; and during his intercourse with that gentleman, I know he flattered himself that they viewed each other with sentiments of mutual esteem. How then would he have been mortified and chagrined, if he had lived to peruse the last edition of Ben Jonson, in which not only his critical opinions are frequently treated with contempt, but even language (I trust hastily) employed, which might seem to cast an imputation on his moral character? It is to this point I speak: and Mr.

Gifford, who himself knows no cold medium in his attachments, would probably despise me, I should certainly despise myself, if I did not come forward, and attempt, at least, to show that such charges are altogether unfounded.

Before I advert to any of Mr. Gifford's accusations in detail, I must make a few preliminary observations. In looking to the opinion which Mr. Malone had formed of Ben Jonson, and his hostility to Shakspeare, an opinion with which I must take this early opportunity of saying I never could coincide, it is important, with a view to appreciate his motives, that we should inquire how far those notions originated with himself, or had been taken up as transmitted by others. If the fair fame of Jonson, hitherto unimpeached, had by him been first called in question, he might then indeed have been stigmatised as a reviler of the illustrious dead, whom all preceding writers had mentioned with honour. But the truth is, that he only adopted opinions which had been almost universally prevalent for more than a century before he wrote, and commencing his literary career with this impression upon his mind, fomented as it was by corresponding prejudices in the minds of those with whom he was first associated in his labours upon Shakspeare; the indignation which he felt against one, who he thought had been unjust to the god of his idolatry, made him look upon the subject with a jaundiced eye, and prevented him, at least in some measure, from applying to it that singular acuteness which on other occasions was so successfully employed in the investigation of truth and the detection of error. I say in some measure; for the reader will find in this later edition, many observations withdrawn, which he had discovered to be erroneous; and there are others yet remaining, which, had I felt myself at liberty to do so, I should gladly have expunged; from a conviction that as truth was at all times the sole object which my late friend had in view, he would have

gladly recalled whatever he had before mistakingly asserted. That the notion of Jonson's hostility to Shakspeare was of no modern date, it will not require many words to prove. It was not only handed down, as Mr. Gifford states, from Mr. Malone to Mr. Weber, but from Dryden, through almost every intermediate writer, to Mr. Malone. So strong, indeed, according to Mr. Gifford, was the general feeling upon this subject, that in speaking of an idle anecdote, related by Smollet of Ben Jonson, he has this remark* ^note: “Smollet knew less of Jonson than even Mr. Malone; he knew enough, however, of the publick to be convinced that in calumniating him, he was on the right side.” I admit that this great poet has been wrongfully treated; I lament that Mr. Malone was led by others into an injurious estimation of his character; but when Mr. Gifford proceeds to accuse my friend of wilful misrepresentation, I must show, as I think satisfactorily, that the charge is destitute of proof.

A note written by Mr. Steevens, which was originally appended to Jonson's Commendatory Verses on Shakspeare, but which in the present edition is placed in juxta-position to the Essay in its confutation, had been referred to by Mr. Malone in a note on Mr. Rowe's Life of the Poet. The following is the remark of Mr. Gifford:

“See also (he says) Mr. Steevens's note on those verses. —With pain I have seen it; and with disgust will the reader learn, that this ‘note of Mr. Steevens’ is neither more nor less than the identical letter of Macklin's which Mr. Malone himself had previously employed nearly thirty pages in proving to be a forgery from end to end! The exposure occurs in the first volume, the ‘note’ at the end of the second; so that Mr. Malone intrepidly hurries past his own refutation in quest of a known falsehood to bolster up a recorded lie.† ^note”

These are hard words: and Mr. Gifford, I am confident, will regret his having used them, when he shall find that he is altogether mistaken in the fact. He has informed us that all his quotations are taken from the edition in 1793, and this, for purposes of general reference, might have been amply sufficient; but when such language is applied to a note of Mr. Malone's, founded, in a great measure, on the place which it occupies, it might have been wished that Mr. Gifford had cast his eye upon the only edition for which Mr. Malone can be considered as responsible, his own in 1790. He would have there found Mr. Steevens's note, vol. i. p. 202; and in the same volume, one hundred and eighty pages afterwards, he would have seen Mr. Malone's refutation. But this is by no means the only instance in which Mr. Malone has been judged by the acts of another.

In speaking of The Winter's Tale, Mr. Gifford remarks, that Mr. Malone's “text and his notes confound each other.” They certainly do so, if we are satisfied to take them as they are exhibited by Mr. Steevens. But how stands the fact? Mr. Malone, in his Essay on the Chronological Order of Shakspeare's Plays, had ascribed The Winter's Tale to the year 1604; but having afterwards procured an inspection of Sir Henry Herbert's office book, he discovered that he had been in an error before his work had finally issued from the press, and pointed it out in his Emendations. The first and erroneous statement Mr. Steevens retained as the text, and then converted the subsequent correction into a note to the very passage which it was designed to overthrow; and thus, by the gross negligence, if ignorantly done, or if otherwise, by the petty trick of a rival editor, Mr. Malone is exposed to the charge of having written nonsense. Another remark by Mr. Gifford arises from his inattention to dates. He commences with an extract from Mr. Malone.

“‘The Comedy of Humours, played eleven times between 25th Nov. 1596 and 11th Maye, 1597.’—‘Perhaps,

says Mr. Malone, (on this extract from Henslowe's memorandum-book,) ‘Every Man in his Humour. It will appear that Ben Jonson had money dealings with Mr. Henslowe, the manager of this theatre, (the Rose,) and that he wrote for him. The play might afterwards have been purchased from this company by the Lord Chamberlain's servants, (Shakspeare, Burbage, Heminge, Condell, &c.) by whom it was acted in 1598.’ Shak. vol. ii. p. 457.

“Would the reader believe, on any authority but the writer's own, that the Mr. Malone, who drew up this plain paragraph, could be the same Mr. Malone who, not merely in one, or two, but in a hundred places, has grossly reviled Jonson on the score of ingratitude to Shakspeare for introducing him to the stage, and bringing out this very play!”

There can be no difficulty in believing it to be the same Mr. Malone who drew up this paragraph, when he had acquired information of which he was not possessed before. He introduces his extracts from the Henslowe MSS. with these words:—“Just as this work was issuing from the press, some curious manuscripts, relative to the stage, were found at Dulwich College, and obligingly transmitted to me from thence.” It is evident that these papers could not, without the gift of prophecy, have enabled Mr. Malone to correct what appeared in an early part of his work, if they did not meet his eye till the conclusion. I may add, that their discovery and polite transmission to the historian of the stage, will add little support to Mr. Gifford's terms of “sloth and ignorance,” so harshly applied to the members of that institution. The censures which are passed on Mr. Malone upon slighter matters, will not require me to detain the reader long.

“Mr. Malone had previously employed several pages (vol. i. pp. 611–15,) in proving Twelfth Night to be written in 1614, that is, sixteen years before the appearance of Every Man out of his Humour; he had also positively affirmed (p. cclxxv) that he ‘did not believe

Twelfth Night was meant;’ yet he subjoins to the note of Steevens, (who knew that he had been delivering a falsehood,) ‘If the foregoing passage was levelled at Twelfth Night, my speculation falls to the ground.’ He has not the integrity to support his own facts, lest he should remove one absurd and wretched calumny from Jonson.”

I am surprised that one so conversant with the press as Mr. Gifford should so certainly conclude, that what appears first when printed, must have been previously written. The reverse is most frequently the case, and the whole of a work is generally gone through before the composition of the prefatory matter; but in the present instance there is no inconsistency; he tells us that if Mr. Steevens is right, he himself must have been wrong; he does not allow that he was wrong, nor give up his own opinion, but only abstains from giving a gentleman, with whom he was then living on terms of intimacy, a direct and blunt contradiction. My principal object is to defend my late friend's integrity; but I will step out of that course for a moment, to say a word in favour of his logick.

“‘Antony Munday is ridiculed here by Ben Jonson; but he might notwithstanding be deservedly eminent; that malignity which endeavoured to tear a wreath from the brow of Shakspeare, would certainly not spare inferior writers.’ p. 481. Mr. Malone is no great logician—but let that pass. The passage to which he refers was probably written before Jonson knew Shakspeare; for it occurs in one of his earliest pieces. With respect to the eminence of Antony, it is somewhat scurvily treated by Decker, Chapman, and Middleton; it is not therefore a necessary consequence that the wreath of Shakspeare was endangered by this ridicule.”

Mr. Malone's argument seems to me sufficiently clear. It does not follow that Munday was not eminent, because he was ridiculed by Jonson. He who (not at that time, but any time) was capable of attacking Shakspeare, who was unquestionably eminent, would not have scrupled to treat inferior writers with the same injustice: not a word

is said of this ridicule endangering Shakspeare. Mr. Malone is sometimes accused of self-contradiction, where, I confess, I cannot discover it.

“‘It is certain’ (he is quoting Mr. Malone's words) ‘that not long after the year 1500, (again referring to the Return from Parnassus!) a coldness arose between Shakspeare and him, which, however he may talk of his almost idolatrous affection, produced, on his part,’ (what is become of Shakspeare's ‘ballad against Jonson?’) from that time, 1600, ‘to the death of Shakspeare, and for many years afterwards, much clumsy sarcasm, and many malevolent reflections.’” p. 481.

“The critic had already forgotten his unfortunate letter, p. cviii, in which he admits that ‘old Ben's jealousy did not fully display itself till Shakspeare retired from the stage.”

Is it inconsistent to say that a man regarded another with jealousy for many years, but that his jealousy did not fully display itself till a certain period?

Mr. Gifford is often in the habit of quoting the commentators generally, without marking out any individual, as if they were a corporate body, or partners in a firm, responsible for the acts of each other; and as Mr. Malone's name is more frequently mentioned than any other, he is apparently loaded with more than belongs to his share; while Mr. Tyrwhitt, Sir William Blackstone, and others, escape under an anonymous censure. As for instance—

“The prologue to Henry VIII. it seems, was written by our author ‘to ridicule Shakspeare;’ and the whole weight of the commentators’ fury is directed against him, and him alone—‘Jonson,’ says one of them, ‘in all probability maliciously stole this opportunity to throw in his envious and spiteful invective before the representation of his rival's play.’ Henry VIII. p. 348. But what influence had Jonson at the Globe, of which Shakspeare or his ‘associates’ Heminge, Burbage, and Condell, were, at this time, the sole managers and proprietors? Who employed

Jonson to write this prologue? Shakspeare's associates. Who spoke it? Shakspeare's associates. Who preserved it? Shakspeare's associates. Who, finally, gave it to the world? Shakspeare's associates!— the very men whom, as Mr. Malone has just observed, ‘the muse of Shakspeare had supported, and whom his last Will shewed that he had not forgotten!’ However great may be the obligations of Jonson to Shakspeare, (of which, I believe, the reader has here had a full account,) it will scarcely be denied that these men, who had so long profited by his wonderful talents, who were, at that very moment, profiting by them, were, at least, equally indebted to him.—Yet of their ingratitude not a word is said, not a hint is dropped, while the collected fury of Mr. Malone and his followers is levelled against a person who, at the worst, was only a simple agent, and wrought as they directed!

“I have entered into these details merely to shew what inconsistencies it is necessary for those to swallow who put their faith in Mr. Malone—for, after all, the whole of this tedious story is an absolute fable. The Prologue was not written by Jonson, and the play was not written by Shakspeare. The Piece acted in 1613 was ‘a new play, called All Is Truth,’ constructed, indeed, on the history of Henry VIII, and, like that, full of shows; but giving probably a different view of some of the leading incidents of that monarch's life. Shakspeare's Henry VIII, as Mr. Malone affirms, was written in 1601; if it had been merely revived, the Prologue would have adverted to the circumstance: but it speaks of the play as one which had not yet appeared; it calls the attention of the audience to a novelty; it supposes, in every line, that they were unacquainted with its plan; and it finally tells them that, if they came to hear a bawdy play, a noise of targets, or to see a fellow in a fool's coat, they would be deceived. Could the audience expect any thing of this kind? or was it necessary to guard them against it, in a favourite

comedy, with which they had all been perfectly familiar for twelve years?’

The commentator, who is first quoted, was Tom Davies; the person who first suggested that the piece performed in 1613 was Shakspeare's Henry VIII., was Mr. Tyrwhitt, and the prologue was ascribed to Jonson, by Dr. Johnson and Dr. Farmer. These distinguished persons can scarcely be termed Mr. Malone's followers. Mr. Gifford has referred to the prologue as furnishing proofs, that it was an entirely new play. I have read it attentively with this view, and discover no such intimations as he has pointed out; but I have attempted to show that no satire was directed against Shakspeare, whoever might have been the author* ^note. Mr. Malone's name is introduced in a note, where words are ascribed to him which he never used, though they are put in an inverted comma—

“‘But,’ says Mr. Malone, ‘All Is Truth must be Shakspeare's Henry VIII., for the titles of many of his plays were changed in 1613; thus Henry IV. was called Hotspur; Much Ado About Nothing, Benedict and Beatrice,’ &c. What is this to the purpose? If other titles were given to those plays in familiar conversation, they were still named after the principal characters or the leading events, and no mistake was likely to arise; but who would have recognized Henry VIII. under the name of All Is Truth? Besides, it is expressly termed a new play. Could Sir Henry Wotton, and those who notice it, be so ignorant of Shakspeare, as to call one of his most popular dramas a new play after it had been familiarised to the stage so many years!”

Mr. Malone has nowhere said, that All Is Truth must be Shakspeare's Henry VIII. for the reason here given. He speaks with less confidence on the subject than Mr. Tyrwhitt; but mentions, indeed, that the titles of some of our author's plays were altered in that year.

“Thus, Henry IV, &c.;” yet by no means produces it as the words which have been added would denote as a decided proof. “But who (says Mr. Gifford) would have recognized Henry VIII. under the name of All Is Truth?” If it had two names, not an uncommon circumstance, any one would have done so easily; and we are expressly told in the continuation of Stowe, that Henry VIII. was the name of the play which was performed when the Globe theatre was burnt; the same thing is stated in a MS. letter to Sir Thomas Puckering by Thomas Larkin; and even Sir H. Wotton, who has given it the title of All is True, has described a scene in it exactly corresponding with Shakspeare's drama* ^note. Let us come to another charge:

“Ben, however, did not trust to the praises of others. One of his admirers honestly confesses

“This admirer, whom Mr. Malone, when he next mentions him, calls ‘Ben's old antagonist,’ p. 640, is Owen Feltham.—But what shall be said of Mr. Malone? A judicial blindness appears to have fallen upon him the instant that he approached Jonson. Deprive him of this plea, and no terms will be strong enough to describe the excess of his ignorance or his malice. The praise refers to our author's works. It is in the composition of his Sejanus, Catiline, and other poems mentioned by Feltham, that he pronounces Jonson to have said so much in his own praise as to make the applause of his friends superfluous: and the critic expressly contrasts his conduct, in this respect, with that of the ‘trivial poets, whose chatterings live and fall at once.’”

Mr. Malone has spoken of Feltham as Jonson's admirer, and also as his old antagonist; because at different

times he was both: in his verses in Jonsonus Virbius, he was the one, in his parody on “Come leave the loathed stage,” he had been the other. I know not why Mr. Malone's interpretation of these lines should be attributed to judicial blindness. That Jonson was in the habit of saying much in his own praise, will not, I think, be denied, and if the adverb boldly is more applicable to the words taken in this sense, there will be neither malice nor ignorance in supposing that Feltham meant to say that his merits were such that only his own pen was fit to describe them. But not to fatigue the reader with entering into a discussion of all the passages in which Mr. Gifford has endeavoured to turn Mr. Malone into ridicule, I shall confine myself to one or two more, in which heavy imputations are laid upon my late friend. A letter from Mr. Malone to Mr. Whalley has been produced in answer to one from that gentleman, soliciting his assistance in his projected edition of Jonson; and wherever Mr. Malone's sentiments, at a subsequent period, are found to vary from those which that letter contains, this change of opinion is converted into a charge against him, and Mr. Gifford exclaims, “What! not honest either?” because he expresses some doubts as to what he had said eleven years before in the hurry of a private correspondence. Mr. Rowe has recorded an anecdote of the venerable John Hales of Eton; and Mr. Malone having found other versions of the same story, has laid them before the reader, as was his usual practice. By this mode we are enabled to compare statements, elicit what appears most agreeable to truth, and, perhaps, may be furnished with materials to shake the credit of the narrative altogether, and this Mr. Gifford thinks he has effected on the present occasion. He ridicules, and with justice, the story, as it was told by Gildon in one of his letters, but none of his arguments tend to impeach it as related by Rowe; yet as a charge is implied against Mr. Malone for having retained in a note what Mr. Rowe had struck out in his first edition, I must refer the reader to

p. 445 of this volume, where he will find the reason assigned. I may add that as the story was altered by Rowe, it exhibited Jonson's hostility in a stronger light. If Hales defended Shakspeare against Jonson, who was present, we might infer from these expressions, that he had called his merits generally in question; but, as it is originally told, he confined his charge to a want of classical knowledge, which was true, and which naturally introduces Hales's answer. But let us see on what grounds Mr. Gifford supposes the story to be utterly incredible.

“A tissue of mere dotage scarcely deserves unravelling; but it may be just observed that when Jonson was seized with his last illness, (after which he certainly never went ‘to Mr. Hales's chamber, at Eton’ or elsewhere,) the two grave judges, Suckling and Falkland, who sat on the merits of all the Greek and Roman poets, and decided with such convincing effect, were, the first in the 12th, and the second in the 15th year of their ages!”

How does this appear? Rowe has given neither date nor place to his anecdote; Jonson, not many years before his death, was still fond of society. Suckling, at the time of that event, was twenty-four, and Lord Falkland was well acquainted with Jonson, and had enjoyed his conversation at the Dog* ^note. Mr. Gifford expresses a doubt whether there is any authority for the assertion, that Suckling was a professed admirer of Shakspeare, except Sir John's Session of the Poets. “To censure Jonson with good-humoured wit for an unlucky play, is sufficient, in the eyes of the criticks, to set him down as an admirer of Shakspeare.” Yet Dryden expressly tells us, that he maintained Shakspeare's superiority; and in one of his letters he speaks of “my friend, Shakspeare,” which, as he certainly could not have personally known him, was a colloquial mode of speaking of a favourite author. If the criticks had no other ground for their opinion

than what Mr. Gifford has supposed, their foundation was rotten indeed: for in Suckling's Session of the Poets, there is not one syllable about an unlucky play. I now come to a most direct accusation against Mr. Malone, conveyed in the most unmeasured terms—“‘Ben Jonson probably meant to sneer at the Tempest in the prologue to Every Man in his Humour—‘our tempestuous drum;’ and he has endeavoured to depreciate this beautiful comedy by calling it a foolery. For some remarks on this audacious falsehood, see vol. iv. p. 371.” Mr. Gifford has said, upon another occasion, “To this atrocious charge, there is but one answer which occurs to me; and though that be usually wrapt up in the courtesy of a learned language, I shall not make use of it.” I shall not pretend to guess at the phrase which, even in its most courteous garb, Mr. Gifford's delicacy prevented him from using; yet I cannot but question, if the whole armamentarium of Gaspar Scioppius himself could have furnished him with stronger terms than here and elsewhere he has applied to Mr. Malone, in plain home-spun English. But let us turn to vol. iv. p. 371, and see these threatened remarks. They are on a passage in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair. “If there be never a servant-monster in the fair, who can help it,” he says, “nor a nest of antiques? he is loth to make nature afraid in his plays, like those that beget tales, tempests, and such like drolleries” Upon this Mr. Gifford observes,

“As this passage has furnished such abundant matter for obloquy, it may not be amiss to examine it at large. Steevens, who is inclined to be complimentary, says that the Tempest was not secure from the criticism of our poet, (he had just charged him with having unsparingly censured it) ‘whose malice appears to be more than equal to his wit. He says, if there be never a servant-monster in the fair, who can help it.’ And Malone affirms that ‘Jonson endeavours to depreciate this beautiful comedy by calling it a foolery.’ The depreciation remains to be proved— but (I regret to say it) I have a heavier charge against Mr.

Malone than a too precipitate conclusion—a charge of misrepresentation. Foolery, cannot indeed be applied to any work without an intent to depreciate it: but this was not Jonson's word, nor was it even in his contemplation. The term used by him is drollery, which had a precise and specific bearing upon the whole subject of his Induction. A droll, or drollery, was the appropriate term for a puppet-show, and is so applied by all the writers of his time. Thus Claudia, in the Tragedy of Valentian, declares that ‘She had rather make a drollery till thirty,’ i. e. spend her youth in making puppet-shows, which she considers as the lowest scene of degradation: and so, indeed, in many other places. The term continued in use down to the last century, for Dennis says, in one of his letters, that ‘he went to see the Siege of Namur, a droll, at Bartholomew Fair.’ Subsequently to Jonson's time, the word was applied to a farcical dialogue in a single scene: but there is, I confidently believe, no instance of a drollery being used for a legitimate comedy. The reader now sees all the advantage derived by Mr. Malone from his sophistication: had he adhered to Jonson's own language, this part of the charge against him could not have been sustained for a moment. I now return to Steevens. ‘Servant-monster’ is undoubtedly to be found in the Tempest; but I am yet to learn that the expression was the invention of Shakspeare, or even peculiar to him; though he has applied it with inimitable humour. The reader is not to learn that the town in those days abounded with exhibitions of what were familiarly called monsters, i. e. creatures of various kinds which were taught a thousand antic tricks; the constant concomitants of puppet-shows. ‘I would not have you,’ says Machin, ‘step into the suburbs, and acquaint yourself either with monsters, or motions.’ (Dumb Night.) And Jonson himself, in a subsequent part of this play, makes Bristle tax Haggise with loitering behind ‘to see the man with the monsters.’ Elephants, camels, bears, horses, &c. were all accompanied

by apes, who amused the spectator by assuming a command over them. Nor is the custom, nor the language, yet obsolete. I have frequently seen, at a country fair, a dog or bear called out to ‘show his obedience to his master,’ an ape, or monkey, that mounted, and drove him about at will. This was the servant-monster of Jonson's age; but there was yet another, the clown who conducted the mummery of such characters as the machinery of the show required, beasts and fishes of the most uncouth and monstrous forms. The frequency and popularity of these exhibitions are excellently noted by Mr. Gilchrist, and it is impossible to look at the part of Trinculo, without seeing that it bears an immediate reference to this custom; and we may form some idea of the roar of the old theatre, at hearing him and his associate unwittingly characterise themselves as monsters, by adopting the well-known expression.”

Opere in longo fas est obrepere somnum. Mr. Malone's work was a long one; and his researches, which have thrown a light upon English literature, by which almost every succeeding writer has profited, and to which Mr. Gifford will confess his obligations, were various, and extensive in no common degree. If in the midst of these labours, by the casual failure of a memory not remarkably retentive, he has, in the haste of writing, substituted one word for another, are we at once to set this down as an instance of wilful misrepresentation? If a lapse of this kind is to be so heavily visited, “who shall escape whipping?” Not even Mr. Gifford. In the fifth volume of his edition of Ben Jonson, p. 254, Mr. Gifford has the following remark:—“It appears from the elegant rules drawn up by Jonson, for the regulation of his club, that women of character were not excluded from attending the meetings.

I am far from wishing to insinuate that these fair ladies

had not a rightful claim to the epithet for which they are indebted to Mr. Gifford; but it was not bestowed upon them by Jonson. His words are—‘Lectæ fœminæ non repudiantor,’ and, without calling into question their probity, it would seem, by the mention of ‘tempting beauties,’ in the verses quoted by Mr. Gifford, from Shakerly Marmion, “an enthusiastick admirer of Jonson,” descriptive of these symposia, that some part of the company were at least drawn thither by “metal more attractive.” Let it not be supposed for a moment, that I accuse Mr. Gifford of a wilful misquotation, or a wish to deceive. I know him to be as incapable of such meanness as even Mr. Malone, and I cannot express myself more strongly; but I have only pointed out this trivial error, with a view of showing that a verbal inaccuracy is a very distinct offence from an audacious falsehood. An hypothesis, indeed, has been started by Mr. Gifford, from the specifick meaning of the word drollery, by which he thinks the possibility of an allusion to Shakspeare is entirely removed; and had this interpretation of the passage been suggested, before it was quoted by Mr. Malone, there might, perhaps, have been some ground for suspecting that he had changed the term for the purpose of eluding the argument; but this was not the case; and impressed, as he was, with the notion that the Tempest was the object of satire, it was of very little consequence whether this beautiful drama was called a foolery or classed with a puppet-show. After all, I am compelled to say, that, without adopting the notion of a permanent hostility between those two illustrious contemporaries, I have seen nothing to convince me that Jonson, in a moment of spleen, to which we are all more or less subject, had not Shakspeare in view. The words servant monster seem so directly to point at Calaban, who is repeatedly called by that name, and so many gratuitous suppositions are required to support the other hypothesis, that I am afraid there is nearly as little reason to doubt that the Tempest was here alluded to, as

that a passage in Julius Cæsar (which Mr. Gifford admits) was twice exposed to his censure, in the Induction to the Staple of News, and his Discoveries. Jonson was not unfrequently in the habit of asserting his pre-eminence, as first having taught rules to the stage; and it surely would have been but a tame mode of expressing his own superior taste and correctness, if he had merely said that his scenes were more according to truth and nature than those which a puppet-show would furnish. One charge more I must advert to, and I have done. Mr. Malone, after producing the well known passage from the Return to Parnassus, which has generally been supposed to allude to some literary contest between Jonson and Shakspeare; but which I shall not stop to examine; proceeds to add the authority of Fuller in his Worthies, which is thus noticed by Mr. Gifford—

“I will give Fuller's words. ‘Many were the witcombates between Shakspeare and Ben Jonson. I behold them like a Spanish great galleon, and an English man of war. Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances, Shakspeare, like the latter, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention.’ Fuller, vol. ii. p. 415.

“These ‘wit-combates’ then (on which Mr. Malone founds a charge of hostility,) turn out after all to be those sprightly repartees which so delighted their common friends.—The solid attacks of Jonson repelled by the quick and lively sallies of Shakspeare (great masters, as both were, of conversation,) must, indeed, have been a mental treat of the highest kind, and could have given to no one, but the commentator, an idea of malice or ill-will on either side. There is nothing visible to ordinary eyes, but the fulness of friendship, enlivened by a social meeting, and tending to hilarity and festive delight. Yet this is produced to prove Jonson's enmity! What idea

of friendship Mr. Malone had formed, I know not; but it seems as if he thought that the conversation of all but deadly foes must, like trade-winds, tend all one way. Our author had other notions of friendship, and, I believe, correcter ones: he says,

“Again:

The words of Fuller are susceptible of two meanings. They may mean either literary contests, or sallies of wit in conversation; and I am satisfied that Mr. Gifford has explained them truly; but is Mr. Malone, who adopted one interpretation, to be censured as if he had understood these words in the other sense? Mr. Gifford knows not Mr. Malone's notions of friendship. I regret that he did not know him better; for he was truly “a man to be loved.” I regret still more deeply that the grave has closed over a long catalogue of illustrious men, whose esteem and regard accompanied him through life, and that my feeble voice must offer that testimony to his notions of friendship, which would have been borne with affectionate warmth, by a Reynolds, a Burke, and a Windham. He was, indeed, a cordial and a steady friend, combining the utmost mildness with the simplest sincerity, and the most manly independence. Tenacious, perhaps, of his own opinions, which he had seldom hastily formed, he was always ready to listen with candour and good humour to those of others; that suppleness of character which would yield without conviction, and that roughness of temper, which cannot tolerate dissent, were equally foreign from his nature: Requiescat in pace.

I may perhaps be permitted, lest my own sentiments should be misunderstood, to state, in a few words, my opinion of Jonson. I regard him with veneration, not only for his great powers, but for that intellectual dignity which, amidst a life of poverty and hardship, in spite of the scanty prospects of his early life, and the difficulties which afterwards beset him, did not suffer them to check him in the ardent pursuit of knowledge, or prevent him from being the first scholar of his age. To no one could the charge of malignity be worse applied. He appears to have been an open, warm-hearted man; but with a hot and haughty temper. The numerous quarrels in which he was engaged, in all of which it would be too great a stretch of candour to suppose him to have been invariably in the right, but which seldom appear to have lasted long, show him to have “carried anger as a flint bears fire.” His energy of expression, whether in praise or censure, frequently exposed him to resentment in the latter case, while the warmth with which, in his happier moments, he speaks of contemporary genius, evinces the liberality and generosity of his mind. His remarks upon contemporary authors, as we find them recorded by Drummond, whose veracity has never been called in question, whatever his motives may have been, are certainly couched in terms of contemptuous asperity; and if such was his usual mode of passing judgment upon others, we cannot be surprised if it should have created offence; and this explains what is said by Davies of Hereford:

This certainly does not prove that Davies thought him envious, but the very reverse: yet such an opinion must have been pretty generally prevalent before any allusion could be made to such a topick in a copy of commendatory

verses. I am willing to say a few words in exculpation of my accomplished countryman Drummond, who has been exposed to very severe censure, on account of what he has left us concerning Jonson. His memoranda were evidently never intended for the press, from the careless manner in which they are written, in point of style, while his compositions intended for the publick eye are marked by the highest degree of polish and limæ labor. His letters, which have been quoted by Mr. Gifford, exhibit his deliberate opinions respecting Jonson, while the strictures upon his character, in these loose notes, were probably penned in a moment of irritation, to which he appears to have been subject. If, indeed, the received notion of Jonson's heat of temper had any foundation, we may suppose him and his northern landlord to have been occasionally as “rheumatick as two dry toasts,” from the description given of the latter by Nicholas Whiting:

His remark, that Jonson was for any religion, as being versed in both, has, I think, been misunderstood. It does not, I apprehend, mean that he was of no religion, but that having been led to consider the controversy deeply, he was acquainted with the arguments on both sides, and might sometimes, like his great namesake, be inclined to talk for victory, by which he might puzzle Drummond, who was probably not a very skilful polemick. We are told, by Jonson himself, in his Discoveries, that when he lamented that Shakspeare had not more discreetly blotted his writings, this remark was ascribed to malevolence, by the players, from whom Dryden, who was connected with the stage during great part of his life, may probably have derived his notion of Jonson's hostility to our great poet. It is not at all incredible that they may occasionally, from their very different views of poetical excellence, have been thrown into collision with each other; but I am convinced

that through the greater part of their lives, they were cordial friends. If any temporary estrangement had ever taken place, it sunk before the tomb of Shakspeare.

His affectionate tribute to Shakspeare's memory, which proves itself to be sincere, by being exactly appropriate, does equal honour to the object of his praise, and his own good heart.

I now take leave of this part of my task, which I have undertaken with reluctance, and have executed with pain. If in any part of it I have been betrayed into undue warmth (of which I am unconscious), my subject, at least with Mr. Gifford, will plead my excuse. If there be any one passage in his own writings to which, more than any other, he can look back with unmingled delight, I will venture to point out his high, but not more high than merited, eulogium upon the present very excellent Dean of Westminster. Let him recall to his recollection the feelings with which that tribute was penned, and he will know what I also must feel in defending the character of one, whom I loved and honoured from my infancy— mine own and my father's friend.

^note

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