where, in the second Scene of the first Act, Celia, dissuading Orlando from the encounter with the Duke's wrestler, says to him: If you saw yourself with your eyes, and knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise." Warburton says: "If you saw yourself with YOUR eyes, and knew yourself with YOUR judgment.' Absurd! The sense requires that we should read our eyes, our judgment." It seems not to have occurred to the editor that the sense might be, "If you saw yourself with your eyes, and knew yourself with your judgment:" and as this solution did not occur to him, he, of course, cuts the knot, and mutilates the text. So, again, in the same play, the impatient Rosalind says: "One inch of delay is a South Sea of discovery:" a phrase vivid with meaning; but Warburton says of it: "This is stark nonsense! we must read, off discovery." Rosalind talks of Orlando's kissing "His kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread." This does not suit Warburton, who remarks: "We should read beard, [instead of bread;] that is, as the kiss of an holy saint, or hermit, called the kiss of charity. This makes one comparison just and decent; the other, impious and absurd." One more example from the same play. The Duke asks Orlando if he believes that Rosalind can do what she promised, and the latter replies: "I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not, Of the last line of which, Warburton says: "As those that fear their hap, and know their fear.'” This was reckless editing; and it soon brought forward defenders of the integrity of Shakespeare's text. But, like all his predecessors, and nearly all of his successors, Bishop Warburton left, in his heaps of editorial chaff, some grains of sense, which have been carefully winnowed out and garnered up in that storehouse of Shakesperian lore, the Variorum edition, which will hereafter claim our attention. In 1745 had appeared a duodecimo volume, entitled "Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth, with remarks on Sir T. H.'s [Sir Thomas Hanmer's] edition of Shakespear; to which is affixed, proposals for a new edition of Shakespear, with a specimen." It was written, as its author might have said, with combined perspicuity of thought, and ponderosity of language. It was by Samuel Johnson, then rapidly rising to the highest position in the world of letters; and, in 1765, an edition of Shakespeare, "with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators to which are added notes, by Samuel Johnson," was published, in eight volumes, 8vo. It is giving the Doctor but little praise to say that he was a better editor than his Reverend predecessor. The majority of his emendations of the text were, nevertheless, singularly unhappy; and his notes, though often learned and sometimes sensible, were generally wanting in just that sort of learning and sense most needful for his task. Strange as it may seem, no one who himself appreciates Shakespeare, can read Johnson's comments and verbal criticisms upon his plays without the conviction that to the 'great moralist,' the grandest inspirations and most exquisitely wrought fancies of the great dramatist were as a sealed book. Many an humble individual whom the learned bear growled atwe do not hesitate to include even "Bozzy" himself-appreciated Shakespeare better than the literary dictator did. The Doctor did not hesitate to say, that one passage in that clever fop Congreve's Mourning Bride was finer than any thing in all Shakespeare's works. And who can forget, or forgive, the manner in which he abuses Sweet Will, when he does not understand him; or, worse yet, the insufferable arrogance with which he patronizes him, and pats him on the head, when he does? Who ever read, without an ebullition of wrath, this curt, savage, and pedagoguish dismissal of Cymbeline: "This play has many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some pleasing scenes; but they are obtained at the expense of much incongruity. To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation." Poor great moralist! obtuse wise man! ignorant Doctor of Laws! For thee Imogen, that purest, that most enchanting, most noble creation, that loveliest, most lovable, most loving, and so most womanly of women, that peerless lady among Shakespeare's peerless ladies, was spoken into being in vain! In vain, for thee the glowing thoughts, the gorgeous imagery, the dainty utterance! In vain for thee the wondrous self-development of character by dialogue and dramatic action! In vain for thee "the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs for thy rectilinear vision is fixed upon "the confusion of names and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life," and, besides, "springs that lies," is ungrammatical ! All the fine writing in the Doctor's high sounding preface will not atone for his treatment of Shakespeare in the body of the work. It is worth while to read here his note on the passage, "One inch of delay is a South Sea of discovery. Warburton's treatment of which has just been noticed. "This sentence is rightly noted by the commentator as nonsense, but not so happily restored to sense. I read thus: 'One inch of delay is a South Sea. Discover, I prithee, tell me, &c.'" In the same play Johnson gravely proposes to read Silvius' entreaty to Phebe, "Will you sterner be Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?" "Will you sterner be Than he that dyes his lips by bloody drops?" It seems difficult to believe that the author of the Rambler and the Idler should have given us such emendations by the score; but these are favorable specimens of a large proportion of his notes; and in those very publications, criticisms occur not less deplorable to the appreciative reader of the bard of all time. Edward Capell was one of the most learned and laborious of the editors of Shakespeare. He published in 1759 a quarto volume entitled, "Notes and various Readings of Shakespeare;" in 1768 he issued an edition of Shakespeare in ten volumes octavo; and in 1779 his "Notes and Various Readings," with many additions and the "School of Shakespeare," were republished in three formidable quarto volumes. The critical student of Shakespeare must have these books, and, alas! must read them. Capell's words are not without knowledge; but they often do as much to darken counsel as has been accomplished by the most ignorant of his co-laborers. Infinite pains and trouble and the closest thinking are sometimes required, to divine what he would be at. The obscurest passage in the author whom he strives to elucidate is luminous as the sun, compared with the convoluted murkiness of his page; and when by chance he quotes a passage for comment, as its clear significance flashes upon the mind, we involuntarily think of the people who sat in darkness and saw a great light. And yet Capell did something for the text. He too, like most of his predecessors and successors, made some conjectural emendations which at once commended themselves to the general sense of the readers of Shakespeare, and which have been preserved, while the mass of his labors are thrust aside, for rare consultation, upon the shelves of the critical or the curious. His collocation of the various readings of the old editions is invaluable for reference. At about this period Shakesperian criticism became rampant. The publication of Warburton's edition in 1747 had provoked controversy and given new stimulus to investigation. From that day commentary trod upon the heels of commentary, and panting pamphleteers toiled on after each other in the never-ending struggle to reach the true text of Shakespeare; a goal which seemed to recede faster than their advance. The commentators were nearly all learned men; and many were men of remarkable ability. But their labors were almost altogether in vain. When they strove most, displayed the most learning, exercised the most ingenuity, they were most at fault: when they were successful, it was generally by chance, and upon some |