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Edmond Malone [1780], Supplement to the edition of Shakspeare's plays published in 1778 By Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. In two volumes. Containing additional observations by several of the former commentators: to which are subjoined the genuine poems of the same author, and seven plays that have been ascribed to him; with notes By the editor and others (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10911]. To look up a word in a dictionary, select the word with your mouse and press 'd' on your keyboard.
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Concerning this play I have not been able to form any decided opinion. The arguments produced by Mr. Steevens in support of its authenticity, appear to me to have considerable weight. If its date were not so precisely ascertained, little doubt would remain, in my mind at least, upon the subject. I find it however difficult to believe that Shakspeare could have written Macbeth, King Lear, and the Yorkshire Tragedy, at nearly the same period. Malone.
The Yorkshire Tragedy hath been frequently called Shakspeare's earliest attempt in the drama; but most certainly it was not written by our poet at all. The fact on which it is built, was perpetrated no sooner than 1605; much too late for so mean a performance from the hand of Shakspeare. Farmer.
Long ago was it observed by Dr. Johnson, that from mere inequality in works of imagination nothing could with exactness be inferred; but if Dr. Farmer's argument be allowed to operate in respect to Shakspeare on this occasion, may it not be employed hereafter with equal force in regard to Dryden and Rowe? It will surely tend to prove that the author of Don Sebastian did not finish his dramatick career with so mean a performance as Love Triumphant, or that the despicable Biter was produced earlier than all the other plays by the same hand, as much as that Shakspeare was not the writer of the Yorkshire Tragedy, because it is unworthy of his ripen'd genius and amended judgment.
I confess I have always regarded this little drama as a genuine but a hasty production of our author * note. Though he was seldom vigilant of reputation as a poet, he might sometimes have been attentive to gain as a manager. Laying hold therefore on the popular narrative * note
of this “bloody business,” it was natural enough that he should immediately adapt it to the stage. His play indeed has all the marks of an unpremeditated composition. As fast as ideas on the subject presented themselves, whether clothed in verse or prose, they seem to have been thrown on paper, without the slightest regard to method or uniformity of writing. The piece was probably meant for representation no longer than while its original continued fresh in the memory of the audience; and we therefore find the corruptions in it are few, being proportioned to the shortness of its run.—Other reasons, however, may be assigned for the appearance of a tragedy compressed within such narrow limits. Perhaps it was contrived as a prop to some feeble, or as a supplement to some scanty performance;—was produced through a wish to join with three particular friends in the entertainment of a single afternoon;—or was only intended as a sketch which the author would at leisure have transplanted on a more extensive canvas. It is possible also that it was manufactured out of some loose unconnected scenes, attempted in the infancy of Shakspeare's art † note, being meant by him to have comprehended the whole circle of misfortunes incident to an unthinking London Prodigal ‡ note
; and as this intention of his was divulged in the theatre among his comrades, it might prove the reason why another piece with the same title was afterwards ascribed to him. When the news of the Yorkshire catastrophe arrived in London, he might have been tempted to accommodate this his early prolusion, as well as haste would permit (for indeed his later corrections often militate against his original plans) to the particulars of another story, (as Otway has since converted Romeo into the younger Marius) for many events are introduced into our tragedy which form no part of the tale as I received it from a person who had heard it frequently related in the parish where the hero of it lived. Hence the incongruity of the beginning, &c. with all the rest, and the accumulation of incidents neither to be found in Stowe's continuator, or the ballads of the age, which usually confined themselves within the bounds of circumstantiality and truth. Yet whatever was its origin or mode of construction, though by no means one of our author's most powerful effusions, it is still entitled to better treatment than it has hitherto met with from its various editors. If, on the whole, it has less poetical merit than some of the serious dialogues in the Midsummer Night's Dream, or Love's Labour's Lost, it has surely as much of nature as will be discovered in many parts of these desultory dramas. Murder, which appears ridiculous in Titus Andronicus, has its proper effect in the Yorkshire Tragedy; and the command this little piece may claim over the passions, will be found to equal any our author has vested in the tragick divisions of Troilus and Cressida,—I had almost said in King Richard the Second, which criticks may applaud, though the successive audiences of more than a century have respectfully slumbered over it as often as it has appeared on the stage. Mr. Garrick had once resolved on its revival; but his good sense at last overpowered his ambition to raise it to the dignity of the acting list. Yet our late Roscius's chief expectations from it, as he himself confessed, would have been founded on scenery displaying the magnificence of our ancient barriers.—To return to my subject, this tragedy in miniature (exhibiting at least three of the characteristicks of Shakspeare, I mean his quibbles, his facility of metre, and his struggles to introduce comick ideas into tragick situations) appears at present before the reader with every advantage that a careful comparison of copies, and attention to obscurities, could bestow on it; and yet among the slight outlines of our theatrical Raphael, and not among his finished paintings, can it expect to maintain a place.
The Companion to the Playhouse however informs us that the late Mr. Aaron Hill has founded on it “a very beautiful piece of one act, entitled Fatal Extravagance.” It was represented, if not published, in 1720, under the name of Joseph Mitchell, an unfortunate though an amiable man, who was then in need of pecuniary assistance. I have never met with this production; but additional respect is surely due to the plot of the Yorkshire Tragedy, since it has been adopted by the translator of Merope and Zayre, who possessed no common share of dramatick sagacity, and has the merit of being the first who showed our theatrical adventurers the way into the treasury of Voltaire. Mr. Hill, however, was not, like some of his successors, a borrower without acknowledgement, or a copier who had produced no originals.
As the ability and erudition displayed by Mr. Malone in the publication of the preceding plays, cannot fail to obtain for them a greater number of readers than they have hitherto met with, perhaps this is no improper time to suggest an inquiry how it happened that the name of Shakspeare should be prefixed to five dramas of discordant styles, and inconsiderable merit, rather than to as many others approaching nearer to his own language, and not altogether so much beneath his acknowledged excellence. The scanty light I can throw on this matter, is by supposing that our author had casually mentioned a future design of adopting subjects similar to those of Locrine, the Puritan, &c; and was afterwards known to have been instrumental in bringing pieces with such titles on the stage;—or that he recommended some trivial alterations in them while they were yet in rehearsal;—or that their real owners being carefully concealed, these productions were imputed to him as to one whose reputation was best able to promote their sale, or support their credit with an audience. The necessity of sheltering the plays of unpopular poets under borrowed names, was, I believe, at that period unknown, as well as the more malicious practice of fathering unsuccessful scenes on persons by whom they were never written. Neither was it then customary (as since) for distinguished authors to lend or sell their names, or to permit (like some Italian artists) the scholar to vend his paintings for those of the master. It seems however that it was not unusual for booksellers to issue out the works of one man under the nominal sanction of another. Heywood, in his preface to the Brazen Age, complains that a noted pedagogue had impudently stolen from him certain versions of Ovid, and published them as his own. Shirley likewise claims a play which was sent into the world as Fletcher's * note. I know indeed that our ancient stationers were not very scrupulous in this particular † note. Anticipated by their rivals in procuring copies of some of Shakspeare's genuine labours, by way of retaliation they might have placed his name before the next tragedies or comedies that fell into their hands. Part of this indeed is but conjecture I have merely started the subject, and leave it to be pursued by literary antiquarians whose sagacity and experience are greater than mine; repeating only that Locrine and the Puritan were possibly the works of two different academicks; that Oldcastle and Cromwell (as Dr. Farmer observes) might be ranked among the almost innumerable dramas of Heywood; and that the Prodigal, having nothing characteristick in its composition, may with equal likelihood be ascribed to a pen distinct from all the rest. Here however I should observe that Locrine, Cromwell, and the Puritan, were not publickly ascribed to our author till the appearance of the folio in 1664. What has been previously urged with relation to the Two Noble Kinsmen, Pericles, and the Yorkshire Tragedy, is submitted to every reader with that total diffidence which should always accompany imperfect knowledge, and would by no means disgrace even opinions built on more solid grounds than those of bare probability.
I cannot conclude this note without observing how fortunate a circumstance it is for any society, and especially for one immediately subservient to learning, when an intelligent man is placed by the chance of rotation at its head. To the careful researches and liberal curiosity of Mr. Lockyer Davis, the present Master of the Stationers' Company, we owe a recent discovery of the greater part of the first volume of their records, which was long supposed to have been lost through negligence, or to have been destroyed in the fire of London. The numberless dates of our earliest interludes, plays, ballads, &c. which will hereafter be ascertained by the aid of these annals, cannot fail to rank the name of the gentleman already mentioned among those of the best benefactors to the history of ancient English literature. Many of our critical or biographical performances may also in time to come be indebted to the warmth of his zeal, and the success of his investigations. At least I am sure that the labour of turning over the memoirs which he has rescued from oblivion, will be considerably alleviated, should his successors entrust them to future authors, with a readiness and politeness like his own. Steevens.
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Edmond Malone [1780], Supplement to the edition of Shakspeare's plays published in 1778 By Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. In two volumes. Containing additional observations by several of the former commentators: to which are subjoined the genuine poems of the same author, and seven plays that have been ascribed to him; with notes By the editor and others (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10911].
