ftage, and his first works encouraged, by Shakefpear. And after his death, that Author writes To the memory of his beloved Mr. William Shakefpear, which fhews as if the friendship had continued through life. I cannot for my own part find any thing invidious or sparing in those verses, but wonder Mr. Dryden was of that opinion. He exalts him not only above all his contemporaries, but above Chaucer and Spenfer, whom he will not allow to be great enough to be ranked with him; and challenges the names of Sophocles, Euripides, and Æfchylus, nay, all Greece and Rome at once, to equal him; and (which is very particular) exprefly vindicates him from the imputation of wanting art, not enduring that all his excellencies fhould be attributed to nature. It is remarkable too, that the praise he gives him in his Discoveries feems to proceed from a perfonal kindness; he tells us, that he loved the man, as well as honoured his memory; celebrates the honesty, opennefs, and frankness of his temper; and only diftinguishes, as he reasonably ought, between the real merit of the Author, and the filly and derogatory applaufes of the Players. Ben Johnson might indeed be fparing in his commendations, (though certainly he is not fo in this inftance) partly from his own nature, and partly from judgment. For men of judgment think they do any man more fervice in praifing him justly, than lavishly. I fay, I would fain believe they were friends, though the violence and illbreeding of their followers and flatterers were

enough to give rife to the contrary report. 1 would hope that it may be with parties, both in wit and state, as with thofe monsters described by the poets; and that their heads at leaft may have fomething human, though their bodies and tails are wild beafts and ferpents.

As I believe that what I have mentioned gave rife to the opinion of Shakespear's want of learning; fo what has continued it down to us may have been the many blunders and illiteracies of the first publishers of his works. In these editions their ignorance fhines almost in every page; nothing is more common than Altus tertia. Exit omnes. Enter three witches folus. Their French is as bad as their Latin, both in conftruction and fpelling: Their very Welsh is falfe. Nothing is more likely than that thofe palpable blunders of Hector's quoting Ariftotle, with others of that grofs kind, fprung from the fame root: it not being at all credible that these could be the errors. of any man who had the least tincture of a school, or the leaft converfation with fuch as had. Ben Johnson (whom they will not think partial to him) allows him at least to have had fome Latin; which is utterly inconfiftent with mistakes like thefe. Nay the conftant blunders in proper names of perfons and places, are fuch as muft have proceeded from a man, who had not fo much as read any hiftory, in any language: fo could not be Shakespear's.

I fhall now lay before the reader some of those almost innumerable errors, which have rifen from

one fource, the ignorance of the players, both as his actors, and as his editors. When the nature and kinds of these are enumerated and confidered, I dare to fay, that not Shakespear only, but Aristotle or Cicero, had their works undergone the fame fate, might have appeared to want fenfe as well as learning.

It is not certain that any one of his plays was published by himself. During the time of his employment in the Theatre, feveral of his pieces were printed separately in quarto. What makes me think that most of these were not published by him, is the exceffive careleffness of the prefs: every page is fo fcandaloufly falfe fpelled, and almost all the learned or unufual words fo intolerably mangled, that it is plain there either was no corrector to the prefs at all, or one totally illiterate. If any were fupervised by himself, I fhould fancy the two parts of Henry IV. and Midfummer Night's Dream might have been fo: because I find no other printed with any exactnefs; and (contrary to the reft) there is very little variation in all the fubfequent editions of them. There are extant two prefaces, to the first quarto edition of Troilus and Creffida in 1609, and to that of Othello; by which it appears, that the first was published without his knowledge or confent, and even before it was acted, fo late as feven or eight years before he died; and that the latter was not printed till after his death. The whole number of genuine plays which we have been able to find printed in his life-time,

amounts but to eleven,

And of fome of these we meet with two or more editions by different printers, each of which has whole heaps of trafh different from the other; which I fhould fancy was occafioned by their being taken from different copies, belonging to different Play-houses.

The folio edition (in which all the plays we now receive as his, were firft collected) was published by two Players, Heminges and Condell, in 1623, feven years after his decease. They declare, that all the other editions were ftolen and furreptitious, and affirm theirs to be purged from the errors of the former. This is true as to the literal errors, and no other; for in all refpects elfe it is far worse than the quarto's.

ous.

First, because the additions of trifling and bombaft paffages are in this edition far more numerFor whatever had been added fince those quarto's, by the actors, or had ftolen from their mouths into the written parts, were from thence conveyed into the printed text, and all stand charged upon the Author. He himself complained of this ufage in Hamlet, where he wishes that those who play the Clowns would speak no more than is fet down for them. (Act iii. Sc. iv.) But as a proof that he could not escape it, in the old editions of Romeo and Juliet there is no hint of a great number of the mean conceits and ribaldries now to be found there. In others, the low fcenes of Mobs, Plebeians, and Clowns, are vaftly shorter than at prefent: And I have seen One in particular (which feems to have belonged

to their play-house, by having the parts divided with lines, and the Actors names in the margin) where feveral of those very paffages were added in a written hand, which are fince to be found in the folio.

In the next place, a number of beautiful paffages which are extant in the first single editions, are omitted in this: as it seems without any other reason, than their willingness to fhorten fome fcenes: These men (as it was faid of Procruftes) either lopping, or stretching an Author, to make him juft fit for their stage.

This edition is faid to be printed from the original copies. I believe they meant those which had lain ever fince the Author's days in the playhoufe, and had from time to time been cut, or added to, arbitrarily. It appears that this edition, as well as the quarto's, was printed (at least partly) from no better copies than the prompter's book, or piece-meal parts, written out for the ufe of the actors: For in fome places their very * names are through careleffnefs fet down inftead of the perfona dramatis: And in others the notes of direction to the property-men for their moveables, and to the players for their entries, are inferted into the text, through the ignorance of the transcribers.

*Much ado about nothing, Act ii. Enter Prince Leonato, Claudio, and Jack Wilson, instead of Balthafar. And in A&t iv. Cowley, and Kemp, conftantly through a whole scene.

VOL, VI.

Edit. Fol. of 1623, and 1632.

Dd