verfcs, 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 ÆschyJus, nay all Greece and Rome at once, to equal him; and (which is very particular) exprefsly 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 Difcoveries feems to proceed from a personal kindness; he tells us that he loved the man, as well as honoured his memory; celebrates the honefty, 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 applauses 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 frinds, though the violence and ill-breeding of their followers and flatterers were enough to give rife to the contrary report. I would hope that it may be with parties, both in wit and state, as with those monsters described by the poets; and that their heads at leaft may have something 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 Shkespear'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 thefe editions their ignorance fhines in almoft every page; nothing is more common than Actus tertia. Exit omnes.

Enter three witches folus. Their French is as bad as their Latin, both in construction and spelling: Their very Welsh is falfe. Nothing is more likely than that those palpable blunders of Hector's quoting Ariftotle, with

others

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 fchool, 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 some Latin; which is utterly inconfiftent with mistakes like these. Nay the conftant blunders in proper names of persons and places, are fuch as must 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 fome of thofe almost innumerable errors, which have rifen from one source, the ignorance of the players, both as his actors, and his editors. When the nature and kinds of these are enumerated and confidered, I dare to fay, that not Shakespear only, but Ariftotle 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 carelessness of the press: every page is so scandalously false spelled, and almost all the learned or unufual words fo intolerably mangled, that 'tis plain there either was no corrector to the press 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 firft quarto edition of Troilus and Creffida, in 1609, and that of Othello; by which it appears, that the firft 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 lat

ter

ter was not printed till after his death. The whole num ber 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 trash different from the other: which I fhould fancy was occafioned by their being taken from different copies, belonging to different Playhouses.

The folio edition (in which all the plays we now receive as his, were first 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 quartos.

For

Firft, because the additions of trifling and bombaft paffages are in this edition far more numerous. whatever had been added, fince thofe quartos, by the actors, or had stolen from their mouths into the written parts, were from thence conveyed into the printed text, and all ftand 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 set 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 scenes of Mobs, Plebeians, and Clowns, are vaftly shorter than at prefent: and I have seen one in particular (which feems to have belonged to the playhoufe, by having the parts divided with lines, and the actors names in the margin) where several of thofe 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 firft fingle editions, are omitted in this : as it feems without any other reason, than their willing

nefs

nefs to shorten fome scenes: Thefe men (as it was faid of Procruftes) either lopping, or stretching an Author, to make him just 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 playhouse, and had from time to time been cut, or added to, arbitrarily. It appears that this edition, as well as the quartos, was printed (at least partly) from no better copies than the prompter's book, or piece-meal parts written out for the use of the actors: For in fome places their * very names are, thro' careleffness, set down instead of the perfonæ dramatis: And in others the notes of direction to the property-men for their moveables, and to the players for their entries, are inserted into the text, through the ignorance of the transcribers.

The Plays not having been before so much diftinguished by acts and scenes, they are in this edition divided according as they played them: often where there is no pause in the action, or where they thought fit to make a breach in it, for the fake of musick, masques, or monfters.

Sometimes the scenes are transposed and shuffled backward and forward; a thing which could no otherwise happen, but by their being taken from separate and piecemeal written parts.

Many verses are omitted entirely, and others tranfpofed; from whence invincible obscurities have arisen, paft the guess of any commentator to clear up, but just where the accidental glimpse of an old edition enlightens

us.

Some characters were confounded and mixed, or two put into one, for want of a competent number of actors. Thus in the quarto edition of Midsummer Night's Dream, A&t v. Shakespear introduces a kind of Master of the revels called Philoftrate; all whofe part is given to another

* Much ado about Nothing, A&t ii. Enter Prince Leonato, C'audio, and Jack Wilson, instead of Balthafar. And in Act iv. Cowley, and Kemp, conftantly thro' a whole scene.

VOL. III.

Edit. Fol. 1623, and 1632. chara&er

character (that of Egeus) in the subsequent editions: So alfo in Hamlet and King Lear. This too makes it probable, that the prompter's books were what they called the original copies.

From liberties of this kind many fpeeches alfo were put into the mouths of wrong perfons, where the author now feems chargeable with making them speak out of character; or fometimes, perhaps, for no better reason, than that a governing player, to have the mouthing of some favourite speech himself, would fnatch it from the unworthy lips of an underling.

Profe from verfe they did not know, and they accordingly printed one for the other throughout the volume.

Having been forced to say so much of the players, I think I ought in juftice to remark, that the judgment, as well as condition of that clafs of people, was then far inferior to what it is in our days. As then the beft playhouses were inns and taverns (the Globe, the Hope, the Red Bull, the Fortune, etc.) fo the top of the profeffion were then mere players, not gentlemen of the ftage: They were led into the buttery by the fteward, not placed at the lord's table, or lady's toilette: and confequently were entirely deprived of thofe advantages they now enjoy, in the familiar converfation of our nobility, and an intimacy (not to say dearnels) with people of the first condition.

From what has been faid, there can be no queftion but had Shakespear published his works himself (especially in his latter time, and after his retreat from the ftage) we fhould not only be certain which are genuine, but fhould find in those that are, the errors leffened by fome thoufands. If I may judge from all the diftinguishing marks of his ftyle, and his manner of thinking and writing, I make no doubt to declare that those wretched plays, Pericles, Locrine, Sir John Oldcastle, Yorkshire Tragedy, Lord Cromwell, the Puritan, and London Prodigal, cannot be admitted as his. And I fhould conjecture of fome of the others (particularly Love's Labour Loft, the

Winter's