abundance than the rest of his works, is perfectly evident; yet I cannot but think that his great poem, not only in the terms which he employs, but in the structure of his phraseology, is designed to carry us back to the recollection of a former age; and that in his exquisite picture of the chivalrous spirit, and simplicity, of the olden time, they were meant, in some measure, to be arrayed in the costume which originally belonged to them. If we were to read a scene in one of Shakspeare's plays, and a canto of the Fairy Queen, to an unpractised auditor, we should find, I apprehend, by this experiment, that the dramatick author would be understood with much greater facility. Yet in the lapse of more than two centuries, it could not but happen that the constant introduction of new terms would displace some of their predecessors. In the older Dictionaries, such as those by Bullokar and Cockeram, we find, among their list of hard words, many which are now in such familiar use, that the most ignorant, even in the lowest class of society, would easily comprehend their meaning. Without any reference to its Greek derivation, a child understands your question, if you ask him whether he has learned his alphabet; but would probably require an explanation if you made the same inquiry as to his. cross row. Shakspeare has thus, from necessity, been sometimes placed in the same situation with his contemporaries; and expressions are to be found in his writings, of which the import can only be ascertained by antiquarian research. The rage of emendation, and the wish to reduce every thing to a modern standard, which Mr. Steevens at one time so successfully opposed, and which he afterwards sanctioned by his example, have spared these old words, the venerable reliques of our ancestors, while they have been mercilessly engaged in expelling antiquated phraseology, or, as Mr. Steevens terms them, the "grannams" of the press. Their defence is not, therefore, called for in this

discussion, which is mainly intended to show the propriety of preserving the integrity of the original text. They have, for the most part, been fully and satisfactorily explained by contemporary usage: but in some few instances, where no such authority could be found, they have been supposed, upon what I cannot but think very hasty grounds, to have been, in all probability, the coinage of our poet himself. If, as Mr. Malone has observed, we were in possession of every pamphlet which was published in the reign of Elizabeth, and had attentively read them all, a price which I apprehend few would be willing to pay for the privilege of pronouncing a decided opinion upon this subject, we might then feel ourselves, in some degree, justified in asserting, that a particular word existed nowhere else than in the pages of Shakspeare. Yet even then we could come to no certain conclusion. Many expressions, of which the correctness is fully allowed, have, perhaps, never found their way into any written composition. In one instance Shakspeare, as it has been conjectured, did not invent a new word, but employed it in a sense very different from that ascribed to it by all his contemporaries. "Thewes, (says Mr. Steevens, after having stated it to have meant, in two passages of Shakspeare, muscular strength,) is perhaps applied by Shakspeare alone, to the perfections of the body; in all other writers of the time, it implies manners and behaviour." Yet the following quotation from Gascoigne, in his "Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of Verse or Ryme in English," seems to prove that Shakspeare used it with its strict. and original signification, and that it was, in the others, a metaphor, the old critick thinks rather a daring one. "This poeticall licence is a shrewde fellow, and couereth many faults in a verse, it maketh wordes longer, shorter, of mo sillables, of fewer, newer, older, truer, falser, and to conclude it turneth all things at pleasure, for example, ydone for done, adoune for

downe, orecome for overcome, tane for taken, power for powre, heaven for heavn, thewes for good parts or good qualities," &c.

But the modern reader of Shakspeare, who is unacquainted with ancient phraseology, and unaided by explanatory comments, would find himself much less puzzled with words which he has never met with before, than with those which he might suppose familiarly known to him, and yet is unable to discover the meaning which they are intended to convey. In the first case he would at once be conscious of his ignorance, and would seek for information elsewhere; but in the second he would think he was perfectly competent to interpret for himself, and if he failed, would be apt to suspect corruption in the text. To fear, used for to create fear; to censure, meaning to express an opinion either favourable, or otherwise; perpetually occur in the pages of Shakspeare and his contemporaries, and indeed for a long period after. Resentment, at the present day, always implies anger; in former times it meant as frequently kindness or affection, or strong feeling of any kind. Archbishop Sancroft, in one of his letters, says, "I resented, as I ought, the news of my mother-in-law's death." Fond would appear to us to be a singular epithet when applied to a preceptor, who, as Johnson said of his old master Hunter, was wrong-headedly severe; but Ascham, when remonstrating against the folly of using harsh modes of education, introduces Sir Richard Sackville as lamenting that a fond scholemaster drave him from the love of learning by the fear of beating. Depraved is used, by Jewel, for an innocent person falsely accused; and the list of words, bearing formerly a signification not affixed to them now, might easily be made more ample than the space, which could, with propriety or advantage, be allotted to it, on the present occasion, would allow. In Shakspeare, and other writers of his time, we fre

quently find substantives formed from verbs, and verbs from substantives, and other deviations from the usage of the present day. Dr. Johnson, in his Preface, remarks, "I have seen in the book of some modern critick, a collection of anomalies, which shew that he has corrupted language by every mode of depravation, but which his admirer has accumulated as a monument of honour." The critick here meant was, I believe, Dr. Hurd, in a note upon Horace's Art of Poetry; but, in truth, there was probably little foundation either for Hurd's applause or Johnson's censure. A considerable number of the instances which, in the note alluded to, are produced for the purpose of exhibiting the callida junctura of Shakspeare, are found in other writers of that age; and it is likely that the rest might also be traced to his contemporaries by a more diligent or fortunate search. Shakspeare's use of adjectives, adverbially, such as damnable ungrateful, for damnably ungrateful, sounds harshly to our ears; but such was certainly the language of his time. One instance, perhaps, will suffice, in addition to those which Mr. Ma-. lone has mentioned in a note on All's Well that Ends Well, vol. x. p. 438, which I have found in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, p. 151, edit. 1613: "Now so evill could she conceale her fire, and so wilfullie persevered she in it." Mr. Malone has remarked the same inaccuracy in Dryden, in his Address to the Reader before his Essay on Dramatick Poesy: "This I intimate, lest any should think me so exceeding vain, as to teach others an art which they understand much better than myself;" and Lowth has detected it in the writers of the reign of Queen Anne. error is even now occasionally heard in lax conversation. Another practice, perhaps still more offensive to grammatical propriety, consists in the use of the passive for the active participle: thus, guiled for beguiling, delighted for delighting, deformed for de

This

forming, and many others, which are pointed out in the notes to our author's plays, and have been suffered to retain their place in the text without a contest. The third person of the present tense sometimes supplies the place of the passive participle: thus, heat for heated, exasperate for exasperated: and here I must take the opportunity of correcting a mistake, which I have fallen into, in a note on All's Well that Ends Well, where, enumerating several expressions of that nature, I have said, that hoist is put for hoisted, which is certainly wrong; as I find the verb to hoise, is of very frequent occurrence. But the most numerous class of irregularities which are to be found in Shakspeare, consists in the faulty construction of his sentences, which are sometimes defective, and sometimes redundant, at least if we have a right to try him by the rules which have been drawn from modern writers. Yet it may reasonably be questioned, whether, in speaking of what is so fleeting and variable, and so little reducible to certain principles, as language, we are entitled to say that we are right, and our ancestors were wrong, because their sentences were constructed differently from that mode which we have thought proper to adopt. If a philosophical system could be formed, universally applicable to every language, which would be difficult; and if all mankind could be persuaded to submit to its authority, which I apprehend would be impossible; we might then subject any instance of disputed phraseology to a certain test, and propriety of speech might be clearly ascertained. But when the very reverse of this is notoriously the case; when the same form of expression is correct in Italian, and barbarous in French; when an admired atticism in Greek is a solecism in Latin; can we safely lay down any other maxim than what we have learned from Horace-that language is subject to the dominion of custom alone?

Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi.