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I have given an enumeration, that I may not be blamed for neglecting what I had not the power to do.

an enemy, and have been more careful to protect than to attack.

I have preserved the common distribution of the plays into acts, though I believe it to be in almost all the plays void of authority. Some of those which are divided in the later editions have no division in the first folio, and some that are divided in the folio have no division in the preceding copies. The settled mode of the theatre requires four intervals in the play, but few, if any, of our author's compositions can be properly distributed in that manner. An act is so much of the drama as passes without intervention of time, or change of place. A pause makes a new act. In every real, and therefore in every imitative action, the intervals may be more or fewer, the restriction of five acts being accidental and arbitrary. This Shakspeare knew, and this he practised; his plays were written, and at first printed in one unbroken continuity, and ought now to be exhibited with short pauses, interposed as often as the scene is changed, or any considerable time is required to pass. This method would at once quell a thousand absurdities.

By examining the old copies, I soon found that the later publishers, with all their boasts of diligence, suffered many passages to stand unauthorized, and contented themselves with Rowe's regulation of the text, even where they knew it to be arbitrary, and with a little consideration might have found it to be wrong. Some of these alterations are only the ejection of a word for one that appeared to him more elegant or more intelligible. These corruptions I have often silently rectified; for the history of our language, and the true force of our words, can only be preserved, by keeping the text of authors free from adulteration. Others, and those very frequent, smoothed the cadence, or regulated the measure; on these I have not exercised the same rigour; if only a word was transposed, or a particle inserted or omitted, I have sometimes suffered the line to stand; for the inconstancy of the copies is such, as that some liberties may be easily permitted. But this practice I have not suffered to proceed far, having restored the primitive diction wherever it could for any rea-rity, I have considered the punctuation as wholly son be preferred.

The emendations, which comparison of copies supplied, I have inserted in the text; sometimes, where the improvement was slight, without notice, and sometimes with an account of the reasons of the change.

Conjecture, though it be sometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It has been my settled principle, that the reading of the ancient books is probably true, and therefore is not to be disturbed for the sake of elegance, perspicuity, or mere improvement of the sense. For though much credit is not due to the fidelity, nor any to the judgment of the first publishers, yet they who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read it right, than we who read it only by imagination. But it is evident that they have often made strange mistakes by ignorance or negligence, and that therefore something may be properly attempted by criticism, keeping the middle way between presumption and timidity.

In restoring the author's works to their integ

in my power; for what could be their care of colons and commas, who corrupted words and sentences? Whatever could be done by adjusting points, is therefore silently performed, in some plays with much diligence, in others with less; it is hard to keep a busy eye steadily fixed upon evanescent atoms, or a discursive mind upon evanescent truth.

The same liberty has been taken with a few particles, or other words of slight effect. I have sometimes inserted or omitted them without notice. I have done that sometimes which the other editors have done always, and which indeed the state of the text may sufficiently justify.

The greater part of readers, instead of blaming us for passing trifles, will wonder that on mere trifles so much labour is expended, with such importance of debate, and such solemnity of diction. To these I answer with confidence, that they are judging of an art which they do not understand; yet cannot much reproach them with their ignorance, nor promise that they would become in general, by learning criticism, more useful, happier, or wiser.

As I practised conjecture more, I learned to trust it less; and after I had printed a few plays, resolved to insert none of my own readings in the text. Upon this caution I now congratulate myself, for every day encreases my doubt of my emendations.

Such criticism I have attempted to practise, and where any passage appeared inextricably perplexed, have endeavoured to discover how it may be recalled to sense, with least violence. But my first labour is, always to turn the old text on every side, and try if there be any interstice, through which light can find its way; nor would Huetius himself condemn me, as refusing the trouble of research, for the ambition of alteration. In this modest industry I have not been unsuccessful. I have rescued many lines from the violations of temerity, and secured many scenes from the inroads of cor-hensible, if I have suffered it to play some freaks rection. I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that in its own dominion. There is no danger in conjecit is more honourable to save a citizen, than to kill ture, if it be proposed as conjecture; and while the

Since I have confined my imagination to the margin, it must not be considered as very repre

text remains uninjured, those changes may be safely offered, which are not considered even by him that offers them as necessary or safe.

If my readings are of little value, they have not been ostentatiously displayed or importunately obtruded. I could have written longer notes, for the art of writing notes is not of difficult attainment. The work is performed, first by railing at the stupidity, negligence, ignorance, and asinine tastelessness of the former editors, showing, from all that goes before and all that follows, the inelegance and absurdity of the old reading; then by proposing something, which to superficial readers would seem specious, but which the editor rejects with indignation; then by producing the true reading, with a long paraphrase, and concluding with loud acclamations on the discovery, and a sober wish for the advancement and prosperity of genuine criticism.

All this may be done, and perhaps done sometimes without impropriety. But I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right. The justness of a happy restoration strikes at once, and the moral precept may be well applied to criticism, quod dubitas ne feceris. To dread the shore which he sees spread with wrecks, is natural to the sailor. I had before my eye so many critical adventures ended in miscarriage, that caution was forced upon me. I encountered in every page wit struggling with its own sophistry, and learning confused by the multiplicity of its views. I was forced to censure those whom I admired, and could not but reflect, while I was dispossessing their emendations, how soon the same fate might happen to my own, and how many of the readings which I have corrected may be by some other editor defended and established.

"Critics I saw, that others' names efface,
And fix their own, with labour in the place;
Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd,
Or disappear'd, and left the first behind." POPE.

That a conjectural critic should often be mistaken,cannot be wonderful, either to others, or himself, if it be considered, that in his art there is no system, no principal and axiomatical truth that regulates subordinate positions. His chance of error is renewed at every attempt; an oblique view of the passage, a slight misapprehension of a phrase, a casual inattention to the parts connected, is sufficient to make him not only fail, but fail ridiculously; and when he succeeds best, he produces perhaps but one reading of many probable, and he that suggests another will always be able to dispute his claims.

It is an unhappy state, in which danger is hid under pleasure. The allurements of emendation are scarcely resistible. Conjecture has all the joy

and all the pride of invention, and he that has once started a happy change, is too much delighted to consider what objections may rise against it.

Yet conjectural criticism has been of great use in the learned world; nor is it my intention to depreciate a study, that has exercised so many mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age, from the Bishop of Aleria 6) to English Bentley. The critics on ancient authors have, in the exercise of their sagacity, many assistances, which the editor of Shakspeare is condemned to want. They are employed upon grammatical and settled languages, whose construction contributes so much to perspicuity, that Homer has fewer passages unintelligible than Chaucer. The words have not only a known regimen, but invariable quantities, which direct and confine the choice. There are commonly more manuscripts than one; and they do not often conspire in the same mistakes. Yet Scaliger could confess to Salmasius how little satisfaction his emendations gave him. Illudunt nobis conjecturæ nostræ, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam in meliores codices incidimus. And Lipsius could complain, that critics were making faults, by trying to remove them, Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc remediis laboratur. And indeed, when mere conjecture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and Lipsius, notwithstanding their wonderful sagacity and erudition, are often vague and disputable, like mine or Theobald's.

Perhaps I may not be more censured for doing wrong, than for doing little; for raising in the public expectations, which at last I have not answered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that of knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to satisfy those who know not what to demand, or those who demand by design what they think impossible to be done. I have indeed disappointed no opinion more than my own; yet I have endeavoured to perform my task with no slight solicitude. Not a single passage in the whole work has appeared to me corrupt, which I have not attempted to restore; or obscure, which I have not endeavoured to illustrate. In many I have failed like others; and from many, after all my efforts, I have retreated, and confessed the repulse. I have not passed over, with affected superiority, what is equally difficult to the reader and to myself, but where I could not instruct him, have owned my ignorance. I might easily have accumulated a mass of seeming learning upon easy scenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that where nothing was necessary, nothing has been done, or that, where others have said enough, I have said no more.

Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him, that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakspeare, and who desires to feel

6) John Andreas.

you feel it too. Those, who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation; he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid; his comic wit

the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged, let it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald and of Pope. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his compre-degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling hension of the dialogue, and his interest in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness, and read the commentators.

Particular passages are cleared by notes, but the general effect of the work is weakened. The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book which he has too diligently studied. Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed; there is a kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the comprehension of any great work in its full design and in its true proportions; a close approach shows the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the whole is discerned no longer. It is not very grateful to consider how little the succession of editors has added to this author's power of pleasing. He was read, admired, studied, and imitated, while he was yet deformed with all the improprieties which ignorance and neglect could accumulate upon him; while the reading was yet not rectified, nor his allusions understood; yet then did Dryden pronounce, "that Shakspeare was the man, who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it,

into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him; no man can say, he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,

“Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.""

It is to be lamented, that such a writer should want a commentary; that his language should become obsolete, or his sentiments obscure. But it is vain to carry wishes beyond the condition of human things; that which must happen to all, has happened to Shakspeare, by accident and time; and more than has been suffered by any other writer since the use of types, has been suffered by him through his own negligence of fame, or perhaps by that superiority of mind, which despised its own performances, when it compared them with its powers, and judged those works unworthy to be preserved, which the critics of following ages were to contend for the fame of restoring and explaining.

Among these candidates of inferior fame, I am now to stand the judgment of the public: and wish that I could confidently produce my commentary as equal to the encouragement which I have had the honour of receiving. Every work of this kind is by its nature deficient, and I should feel little solicitude about the sentence, were it to be pronounced only by the skilful and the learned.

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gistracy, had it not been asserted upon very doubtful authority; but Mr. Malone is of opinion, that these "faithful and approved services" must be meant of some of the ancestors of his wife, one of the Ardens.

Whatever may have been his former wealth, it appears to have been greatly reduced in the latter part of his life, as it is found in the books of the corporation, that in 1579 he was excused the trifling weekly tax of fourpence, levied on all the aldermen; and that in 1586 another alderman was appointed in his room, in consequence of his declining to attend on the business of that office.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE was born at Stratford-upon- | This might account for his being elected to the maAvon, in Warwickshire, on the 23d day of April, 1564. Of the rank of his family it is not easy to form an opinion. Mr. Rowe says, that according to the register and certain public writings relating to Stratford, his ancestors were "of good figure and "fashion" in that town, and are mentioned as "gentle"men;" but the result of the late as well as early inquiries made by Mr. Malone is, that the epithet gentleman was first applied to the poet, and even to him at a late period of his life. Mr. Malone's inclination to elevate Shakspeare's family cannot be doubted, yet he is obliged to confess that, after thirty years' labour, he could find no evidence to support it. His father, John Shakspeare, according to Mr. Malone's conjecture, was born in or before the year 1530. John Shakspeare was not originally of Stratford, but, perhaps, says Mr. Malone, of Snitterfield, which is but three miles from Stratford. He came to Stratford not very long after the year 1550. Former accounts have reported him to have been a considerable dealer in wool, but Mr. Malone has discovered that he was a glover; and, to add importance to this discovery, 1) he has given us a historical dissertation upon the state of the glove trade in queen Elizabeth's time. But, notwithstanding the flourishing state of that trade in Stratford, and a conjecture, that John Shakspeare furnished his customers with "leathern hose, aprons, belts, points, jerkins, pouches, wallets, satchels, and purses,' Mr. Malone confesses, that from all this, the poet's father derived but a scanty maintenance.

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John Shakspeare had been, in 1568, an officer or|| bailiff (high-bailiff or mayor) of the body corporate of Stratford, and chief alderman in 1571. At one time, it is said that he possessed lands and tenements to the amount of 5001., the reward of his grandfather's faithful and approved services to king Henry VII.

1) "On the subject of the trade of John Shakspeare, I "am not under the necessity of relying on conjecture, being "enabled, after a very tedious and troublesome search, to “shut up this long agitated question for ever." Malone's Life of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 70. of his new edition of Shakspeare's Plays and Poems, 21 vols. 8vo. 1821. It does not appear where any question about the trade of John Shakspeare was ever agitated. His being a dealer in wool was first asserted by Mr. Rowe, and silently acquiesced in by all succeeding editors and commentators, Mr. Malone not excepted, until he discovered that John's trade was that of a glover; and then, in his imagination, he had the honour of shutting up a long agitated question for ever.

His wife, to whom he was married in 1557, was the youngest daughter and heiress of Robert Arden, of Wellingcote or Wilmecote, in the county of Warwick, by Agnes Webb his wife. Mary Arden's fortune, Mr. Malone has discovered, amounted to one hundred and ten pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence!

Mr. Arden is styled a "gentleman of worship,” and the family of Arden is very ancient. Robert Arden of Bromich, Esq., is in the list of the Warwickshire gentry, returned by the commissioners in the twelfth year of king Henry V., A. D. 1433. Edward Arden was sheriff of the county in 1568. The woodland part of this county was anciently called Ardern, afterwards softened to Arden, and hence the name.

It was formerly said that John Shakspeare had ten children, and it was inferred, that the providing for so large a family must have embarrassed his circumstances; but Mr. Malone has reduced them to eight, five of whom only attained to the age of maturity,-four sons and a daughter. Our illustrious poet was the eldest of the eight, and received his education, however narrow or liberal, at the freeschool founded at Stratford.

From this he appears to have been placed in the office of some country attorney, or the seneschal of some manor court, where, it is highly probable, he picked up those technical law phrases that frequently occur in his plays, and which could not have been in common use unless among professional men. It has been remarked, but the remark will probably be thought of no great value, that he derives none of his allusions from the other learned professions. Of amusements, his favourite appears to have been falconry. Very few, if any of his plays, are without some allusions to that sport; and archery, likewise, appears to have engaged much of his attention.

Mr. Capell conjectures, that his early marriage prevented his being sent to one of the universities.

It appears, however, as Dr. Farmer observes, that his early life was incompatible with a course of education; and it is certain that "his contemporaries, "friends and foes, nay, and himself likewise, agree "in his want of what is usually termed literature." It is, indeed, a strong argument in favour of Shakspeare's illiterature, that it was maintained by all his contemporaries, many of whom have bestowed every other merit upon him, and by his successors, who lived nearest to his time, when "his memory "was green:" and that it has been denied only by Gildon, Sewell, and others, down to Upton, who could have no means of ascertaining the truth. Mr. Malone seems inclined to revive their opinion, but finds it impossible.

In his eighteenth year (1582) or perhaps a little sooner, he married ANNE HATHAWAY, who was seven years and a half older than himself. She was the daughter of one Hathaway, who is said to have been a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford. Of his domestic economy or professional occupation at this time, we have no information; but if we may credit former accounts, by Rowe, &c., it would appear, that both were in a consider able degree neglected, in consequence of his associating with a gang of deer-stealers.

It is said, that being detected with them in robbing the park, that is, stealing deer out of the park of sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford, he was so rigorously prosecuted by that gentleman as to be obliged to leave his family and business, whatever that might be, and take shelter in London. Sir Thomas, on this occasion, was exasperated by a ballad which Shakspeare wrote, (probably his first essay in poetry,) of which the following stanza was communicated to Mr. Oldys:

"A parliemente member, a justice of peace,

"At home a poor scare-crowe, at London an asse,
"If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it,
"Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it:

"He thinks himself greatc,

"Yet an asse in his state

"We allowe by his ears but with asses to mate.
"If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it,
"Sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befall it."

In our preceding edition, we remarked that these lines do no great honour to our poet, and the satire was probably unjust; for, although some of his admirers have exclaimed against sir Thomas as a "vain, "weak, and vindictive magistrate," he was certainly exerting no very violent act of oppression in protecting his property against a young man who was degrading the commonest rank of life, and who had at this time bespoke no indulgence by any display of superior talents. It was also added, that the ballad must have made some noise at sir Thomas's expence, for the author took care it should be affixed to his park gates, and liberally circulated among his neighbours.

In defence of Shakspeare, Mr. Malone attempts to prove that our poet could not have offended sir Thomas Lucy by stealing his deer: FIRST, because (granting for a moment that he did steal deer) stealing deer was a common youthful frolic, and therefore could not leave any very deep stain on his character: SECONDLY, it was a practice wholly unmixed with any sordid or lucrative motive, for the venison thus obtained was not sold, but freely participated at a convivial board: THIRDLY, that the ballad Shakspeare is said to have written in ridicule of sir Thomas Lucy is a forgery: and LASTLY, that sir Thomas Lucy had no park, and no deer.

After this very singular defence of Shakspeare, which occupies thirty of Mr. Malone's pages, besides some very prolix notes, he appears to be perplexed to know what to do with Shakspeare's resentment against sir Thomas Lucy. That he had a resentment against this gentleman is certain, and that he retained it for many years is equally certain, for he gave vent to it in 1601, when he wrote "The "Merry Wives of Windsor," about a year after sir Thomas's death.

Mr. Malone, after allowing that various passages in the first scene of the above-mentioned play, afford ground for believing that our author, on some account or other, had not the most profound respect for sir Thomas, adds, "the dozen white luces, how"ever, which Shallow is made to commend as "a "good coat,' was not sir Thomas Lucy's coat of "arms: though Mr. Theobald asserts that it is found "on the monument of one of the family, as repre"sented by Dugdale. No such coat certainly is found, "either in Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, "or in the church of Charlecote, where I in vain "sought for it. It is probable that the deviation "from the real coat of the Lucies, which was gules, "three lucies hariant, argent, was intentionally made "by our poet, that the application might not be too "direct, and give offence to sir Thomas Lucy's son, "who, when this play was written, was living, and "much respected, at Stratford."

As the deer-stealing story has hitherto been told in order to account for Shakspeare's arrival in London, it might have been expected that Mr. Malone would have been enabled to substitute some other reason, and to precede the arrival of our poet with some circumstances of more importance and of greater dignity; but nothing of this kind is to be found. We have lost the old tradition, with all its feasible accompaniments, but have got nothing in return. All that Mr. Malone ventures to conjecture, is, that when Shakspeare left Stratford, "he was involved in some "pecuniary difficulties."

On his arrival in London, which was probably in the year 1586, when he was only twenty-two years old, he is said to have made his first acquaintance in the play-house, to which idleness or taste may have directed him, and where his necessities, if tradition may be credited, obliged him to accept the office of call-boy, or prompter's assistant. This is a menial whose employment it is to give the performers notice to be ready to enter, as often as the business of the play requires their appearance on the stage. Pope, however, relates a story communicated to him by Rowe, but which Rowe did not think deserving of a place in the life which he wrote, that must a little retard the advancement of our poet to the office just mentioned. According to this story, Shakspeare's first employment was to wait at the door of the play-house, and hold the horses of those who had no servants, that they might be ready after the performance. But "I cannot," says his acute commentator, Mr. Steevens, "dismiss "this anecdote without observing that it seems to "want every mark of probability. Though Shak"speare quitted Stratford on account of a juvenile "irregularity, we have no reason to suppose that he "had forfeited the protection of his father, who was "engaged in a lucrative business, or the love of his "wife, who had already brought him two children, "and was herself the daughter of a substantial yeo"man. It is unlikely, therefore, when he was be"yond the reach of his prosecutor, that he should "conceal his plan of life, or place of residence, from "those who, if he found himself distressed, could not

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