Yet Winter's Tale, and Titus Andronicus) that only fome characters, fingle scenes, or perhaps a few particular paffages, were of his hand. It is very probable, what occafioned some plays to be supposed Shakespear's was only this; that they were pieces produced by unknown authors, or fitted up for the theatre while it was under his administration: and no owner claiming them, they were adjudged to him, as they give ftrays to the lord of the manor a mistake which (one may alfo obferve) it was not for the intereft of the house to remove. the players themselves, Heminges and Condell, afterwards did Shakespear the juftice to reject thofe eight plays in their edition; tho' they were then printed in his name, in every body's hands, and acted with fome applause; (as we learn from what Ben Johnson says of Pericles in his Ode on the New Inn.) That Titus Andronicus is one of this clafs I am the rather induced to believe, by finding the fame Author openly exprefs bis contempt of it in the Induction to Bartholomew-Fair, in the year 1614, when Shakespear was yet living. And there is no better authority for those latter fort, than for the former, which were equally published in his life-time. If we give into this opinion, how many low and vicious parts and paffages might no longer refle&t upon this great genius, but appear unworthily charged upon him? And even in those which are really his, how many faults may have been unjustly laid to his account from arbitrary additions, expunctions, tranfpofitions of fcenes and lines, confufion of characters and persons, wrong application of fpeeches, corruptions of innumerable paffages by the ignorance, and wrong corrections of them again by the impertinence, of his firft editors? From one or other of these confiderations, I am verily perfuaded, that the greatest and the groffeft part of what are thought his errors would vanifh, and leave his character in a light very different from that disadvantageous one, in which it now appears to us. This is the ftate in which Shakespear's writings lie at present: for, fince the above mentioned folio edition, all the rest have implicitly followed it, without having recourfe to any of the former, or ever making the comparison between them. It is impoffible to repair the injuries already done him; too much time has elapfed, and the materials are too few. In what I have done, I have rather given a proof of my willingness and defire, than of my ability, to do him juftice. I have difcharged the dull duty of an Editor, to my best judgment, with more labour than I expect thanks, with a religious abhorrence of all innovation, and without any indulgence to my private sense or conjecture. The me thod taken in this edition will fhew itself. The various readings are fairly put in the Margin, fo that every one may compare them; and those I have preferred into the text are conftantly ex fide codicum, upon authority. The alterations or additions which Shakespear himself made, are taken notice of as they occur. Some fufpected pasfages which are exceffively bad (and which seem interpolations, by being fo inferted that one can entirely omit them without any chaẩm, or deficience in the context) are degraded to the bottom of the page; with an asterisk referring to the places of their infertion. The scenes are marked so distinctly that every removal of place is specified; which is more neceffary in this Author than any other, fince he shifts them more frequently and fometimes without attending to this particular, the reader would have met with obfcurities. The more obfolete or unufual words are explained. Some of the moft. fhining paffages are diftinguished by comma's in the margin; and where the beauty lay not in particulars but in the whole, a ftar is prefix'd to the fcene. This feems to me a fhorter and lefs oftentatious method of performing the better half of Criticism, (namely the pointing out an Author's excellencies) than to fill a whole paper with citations of fine paffages, with general applaufes, or empty exclamatious at the tail of them. There is alfo fubjoined a catalogue of those first editions by by which the greater part of the various readings and of the corrected paffages are authorised (most of which are fuch as carry their own evidence along with them.) These editions now hold the place of originals, and are the only materials left to repair the deficiencies or restore the corrupted sense of the Author: I can only wish that a greater number of them (if a greater were ever published) may yet be found, by a fearch more fuccefsful than mine, for the better accomplishment of this end. I will conclude by saying of Shakespear, that with all his faults, and with all the irregularity of his drama, one may look upon his works, in comparison of those that are more finished and regular, as upon an ancient majeftic piece of Gothic architecture, compared with a neat modern building: The latter is more elegant and glaring, but the former is more ftrong and more folemn. It must be allowed, that in one of these there are materials enough to make many of the other. It has much the greater variety, and much the nobler apartments; tho' we are often conducted to them by dark, odd, and uncouth paffages. Nor does the whole fail to ftrike us with greater reverence, tho' many of the parts are childish, ill placed, and unequal to its grandeur. |