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fingular. "He well knew," it has been faid, "that much the greater part of his notes do not throw any light on the poet of whose works he undertook the revision, and that he frequently imputed to Shakspeare a meaning of which he never thought; but the editor's great object was to difplay his own learning, not to illustrate his author, and this end he obtained; for in spite of all the clamour against him, his work added to his reputation as a scholar."-Be it so then; but let none of his admirers ever dare to unite his name with that of Shakspeare; and let us at least be allowed to wonder, that the learned editor should have had fo little respect for the greatest poet that has appeared fince the days of Homer, as to use a commentary on his works merely as “ a stalking-horfe, under the presentation of which he might shoot his wit."

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At length the task of revising these plays was undertaken by one, whose extraordinary powers of mind, as they rendered him the admiration of his contemporaries, will tranfmit his name to pofterity as the brightest ornament of the eighteenth century; and will tranfmit it without competition, if we except a great orator, philosopher, and statefman, now living, whose talents and virtues are an honour to human nature. In 1765 Dr. Johnfon's edition, which had long been impatiently expected, was given to the publick. His admirable preface, (perhaps the finest composition in our language,) his happy, and in general just, characters of these plays, his refutation of the false gloffes of Theobald and Warburton, and his numerous explica

The Right Honourable Edmund Burke.

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tions of involved and difficult passages, are too well known, to be here enlarged upon; and therefore I shall only add, that his vigorous and comprehenfive understanding threw more light on his author than all his predecessors had done.

In one observation, however, concerning our poet, I do not entirely concur with him, “It is not (he remarks) very grateful to confider how little the fucceffion 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."

He certainly was read, admired, studied, and imitated, at the period mentioned; but furely not in the fame degree as at present. The fucceffion of editors has effected this; it has made him understood; it has made him popular; it has shewn every one who is capable of reading, how much superior he is not only to Jonson and Fletcher, whom the bad taste of the last age from the time of the Restoration to the end of the century set above him, but to all the dramatick poets of antiquity:

- Jam monte potitus,

" Ridet anhelantem dura ad veftigia turbam."

Every author who pleases must surely please more as he is more understood, and there can be no doubt that Shakspeare is now infinitely better understood than he was in the last century. To fay nothing of the people at large it is clear that Dryden himself though a great admirer of our poet, and D'Avenant, though, he wrote for the

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stage in the year 1627, did not always understand him." The very books which are necessary to our

7 "The tongue in general is so much refined fince Shakspeare's time, that many of his words, and more of his phrases, are scarce intelligible." Preface to Dryden's Troilus and Greffida. The various changes made by Dryden in particular paffages in that play, and by him and D'Avenant in The Tempest, prove decisively that they frequently did not understand our poet's language.

In his defence of the Epilogue to The Conquest of Granada, Dryden arraigns Ben Jonson for ufing the perfonal, instead of the neutral, pronoun, and unfear'd for unafraid:

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Though heaven should speak with all his wrath at once, "We should stand upright, and unfear`d."

"His (fays he) is ill fyntax with heaven, and by unfear'd he means unafraid; words of a quite contrary fignification. He perpetually uses ports for gates, which is an affected error in him, to introduce Latin by the lofs of the English idiom."

Now his for its, however ill the syntax may be, was the common language of the time; and to fear, in the sense of to terrify, is found not only in all the poets, but in every dictionary of that age. With respect to ports, Shakspeare who will not be suspected of affecting Latinisms, frequently employs that word in the same sense as Jonfon has done, and as probably the whole kingdom did; for the word is still so used in Scotland.

D'Avenant's alteration of Macbeth, and Measure for Meafure, furnish many proofs of the same kind. In The Law against Lovers, which he formed on Much Ado about Nothing, and Measure for Measure, are these lines:

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- nor do I think,

"The prince has true difcretion who affects it.

The passage imitated is in Measure for Meafure:

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Nor do I think the man of fafe difcretion,

"That does affect it."

If our poet's language had been well underflood, the epithet

Safe would not have been rejected. See Othello :

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My blood begins my fafer guides to rule;

"And paffion, having my best judgment collied." &c.

So alfo Edgar, in King Lear:

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The safer fenfe will ne'er accommodate

"His mafter thus."

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author's illustration, were of so little account in their time, that what now we can scarce procure at any price, was then the furniture of the nurfery or stall. In fifty years after our poet's death, Dryden mentions that he was then become “a little obfolete." In the beginning of the present century Lord Shaftesbury complains of his unpolished ftile, and his ANTIQUATED phrafe and wit;" and not long afterwards Gildon informs us that he

"rude

8 The price of books at different periods may serve in fome measure to afcertain the taste and particular study of the age. At the fale of Dr. Francis Bernard's library in 1698, the following books were fold at the annexed prices:

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Caxton's Recueyll of the histories of Troy, 1502. 0 3 0

Chronicle of England.

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Hall's Chronicle.

Grafton's Chronicle.

Holinshed's Chronicle, 1587.

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This book is now frequently fold for ten guineas.

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This book is now usually fold for a guinea.

Powell's History of Wales.

Painter's fecond tome of the Palace of Pleasure.

The two volumes of Painter's Palace of Pleafure are now ufually fold for three guineas.

OCTAVO.

Metamorphosis of Ajax, by Sir John Harrington. 0 4 had been rejected from some modern collections of poetry on accunt of his obfolete language. Whence could these representations have proceeded, but because our poet, not being diligently studied, not being compared with the contemporary writers, was not understood? If he had been "read, ad. mired, studied, and imitated," in the same degree as he is now, the enthusiasm of fome one or other of his admirers in the last age would have induced him to make some enquiries concerning the hiftory of his theatrical career, and the anecdotes of his private life. But no fuch person was found; no anxiety in the publick fought out any particulars concerning him after the Restoration, (if we except the few which were collected by Mr. Aubry,) though at that time the history of his life must have been known to many; for his sister Joan Hart, who must have known much of his early years, did not die till 1646: his favourite daughter, Mrs. Hall, lived till 1649; and his fecond daughter, Judith, was living at Stratford-upon-Avon in the beginning of the year 1662. His grand-daughter, Lady Barnard, did not die till 1670. Mr. Thomas Combe, to whom Shakspeare bequeathed his sword, survived our poet above forty years, having died at Stratford. in 1657. His elder brother William Combe lived till 1667. Sir Richard Bishop, who was born in 1585, lived at Bridgetown near Stratford till 1672; and his fon Sir William Bishop, who was born in 1626, died there in 1700. From all these perfons without doubt many circumstances relative to Shakspeare might have been obtained; but that was an age as deficient in literary curiosity as in

tafte.

VOL. I.

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