of his disquisition, &c. &c. let but a quibble spring up before him and he leaves his work unfinished.” It next is the golden apple of Atalanta:-" A quibble is to Shakspeare the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight that he was content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth;" and, lastly, the meteor, the bird of game, and the golden apple are converted into the renowned queen of Egypt: for "a quibble is to him (Shakspeare) the fatal Cleopatra, for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it!" Shakspeare lost the world! He won it in an age of intellectual giantsthe Anakims of mind were then in the land; and in what succeeding period has he lost it? But, not to take advantage of an idle frolic of the editor's imagination, can the things be which he asserts? Can the author, whom he thus degrades, be the man, whom the greater Jonson, of James's reign, hails as, " The pride, the joy, the wonder of the age!" No! it is impossible! and if we come to a close examination of what our prefacewriter has here alleged against his author, of which I have transcribed only a part, we shall find that one half of it is false, and one, something very like nonsense, disguised in a garb of tinsel embroidery, and covered, as it moves statelily along, with a cloud of words:

Infert se septus nebulâ, mirabile dictu,

Per medios, miscetque viris neque cernitur ulli.

To discover the falsity or the inanity of the ideas, which strut in our editor's sentences against the fame of his author, we have only to strip them of the diction which envelopes them; and then, with a Shakspeare in our hands, to confront them, in their nakedness, with the truth as it is manifested in his page. But we have deviated from our straight path to regard our editor as a critic in his preface, when we ought, perhaps, to consider him only in his notes, as a commentator to explain the obscurities; or, as an experimentalist to assay the errors of his author's text. As an unfolder of intri

cate and perplexed passages, Johnson must be allowed to excel. His explanations are always perspicuous; and his proffered amendments of a corrupt text are sometimes successful. But the expectations of the world had been too highly raised to be satisfied with his performance; and it was only to the most exceptionable part of it, the mighty preface, that they gave their unmingled applause. In the year following the publication of Johnson's edition, in 1766, George Steevens made his first appearance as a commentator on Shakspeare ; and he showed himself to be deeply conversant with that antiquarian reading, of which his predecessor had been too ignorant. In 1768, an edition of Shakspeare was given to the public by Capell ; a man fondly attached to his author, but much too weak for the weighty task which he undertook. He had devoted a large portion of his life to the collection of his materials: he was an industrious collator, and all the merit, which he possesses, must be derived from the extent and the fidelity of his collations. In 1773 was published an edition of our dramatist by the associated labours of Johnson and Steevens; and this edition, in which were united the native powers of the former, with the activity, the sagacity, and the antiquarian learning of the latter, still forms the standard edition for the publishers of our Poet. In 1790 Malone entered the lists against them as a competitor for the editorial palm. After this publication, Malone seems to have devoted the remaining years of his life to the studies requisite for the illustration of his author; and at his death he bequeathed the voluminous papers, which he had prepared, to his and my friend, James Boswell, the younger son of the biographer of Johnson; and by him these papers were published in twenty octavo volumes, just before the close of his own valuable life. That the fund of Shakspearian information has been enlarged by this publication, cannot reasonably be doubted: that the text of Shakspeare has been injured by it, may confidently be asserted. As my opinion of Malone, as an annotator on Shakspeare, has been already expressed, it would be superfluous to

repeat it. His stores of antiquarian knowledge were at least equal to those of Steevens: but he was not equally endowed by Nature with that popular commentator: Malone's intellect was unquestionably of a subordinate class. He could collect and amass; but he could not combine and arrange. Like a weak soldier under heavy armour, he is oppressed by his means of safety and triumph. He sinks beneath his knowledge, and cannot profitably use it. The weakness of his judgment deprived the result of his industry of its proper effect. He acts on a right principle of criticism: but, ignorant of its right application, he employs it for the purposes of error. He was not, in short, formed of the costly materials of a critic; and no labour, against the inhibition of Nature, could fashion him into a critic. His page is pregnant with information: but it is thrown into so many involutions and tangles, that it is lighter labour to work it out of the original quarry than to select it amid the confusion in which it is thus brought to your hand. If any copy of indisputable authority had been in existence, Malone would have produced a fac-simile of it, and would thus, indeed, have been an admirable editor of his author, for not a preposition, a copulative, a particle, a comma to be found in his original, would have been out of its place in his transcript. But no such authentic copy of Shakspeare could be discovered; and something more than diligence and accuracy was required in his editor: and to nothing more than diligence and accuracy could Malone's very humble and circumscribed abilities aspire. Attaching, therefore, fictitious authority to some of the earlier copies, he followed them with conscientious precision; and, disclaiming all emendatory criticism, he rejoiced in his fidelity to the errors of the first careless or illiterate transcriber. He closed the long file of the editors of Shakspeare. But although no formal editor or commentator has hitherto appeared to supply the place left vacant by Malone, yet does the importance of our bard continue to excite the man of talents to write in his cause, and to refresh the wreath of fame, which has hung for two centuries on his tomb. On this occasion

I must adduce the name of Skottowe, a gentleman who has recently gratified the public with a life of Shakspeare, involving a variety of matter respecting him, in a style eminent for its compression and its neatness. To Mr. Skottowe I must acknowledge my especial obligations, for not infrequently relieving me from the prolixities and the perplexities of Malone; and sometimes for giving to me information in a compendious and lucid form, like a jewel set in the rich simplicity of gold.

When I speak of Malone as the last of the editors of Shakspeare, I speak, of course, with reference to the time at which I am writing, when no later editor has shown himself to the world. But when I am placed before the awful tribunal of the Public, a new Editor of our great dramatist will stand by my side: who, whilst I can be only a suppliant for pardon, may justly be a candidate for praise. With Mr. SINGER, the editor in question, I am personally unacquainted; and till a period, long subsequent to my completion of the little task which I had undertaken, I had not seen a line of his Shakspearian illustrations. But, deeming it right to obtain some knowledge of the Gentleman, who was bound on the same voyage of adventure, in the same vessel with myself, I have since read the far greater part of his commentary on my author; and it would be unjust in me not to say, that I have found much in it to applaud, and very little to censure. Mr. Singer's antiquarian learning is accurate and extensive: his critical sagacity is considerable; and his judgment generally approves itself to be correct. He enters on the field with the strength of a giant; but with the diffidence and the humility of a child. We sometimes wish, indeed, that his humility had been less: for he is apt to defer to inferior men, and to be satisfied with following when he is privileged to lead. His explanations of his author are frequently happy; and sometimes they illustrate a passage, which had been left in unregarded darkness by the commentators who had preceded him. The sole fault of these explanatory notes (if such indeed can

be deemed a fault) is their redundancy; and their recurrence in cases where their aid seems to be unnecessary. Mr. Singer and I may occasionally differ in our opinions respecting the text, which he has adopted: but, in these instances of our dissent, it is fully as probable that I may be wrong as he. I feel, in short, confident, on the whole, that Mr. Singer is now advancing, not to claim (for to claim is inconsistent with his modesty) but, to obtain a high place among the editors of Shakspeare; and to have his name enrolled with the names of those who have been the chief benefactors of the reader of our transcendent Poet.

We have now seen, from the first editorial attempt of Rowe, a whole century excited by the greatness of one man, and sending forth its most ambitious spirits, from the man of genius down to the literary mechanic, to tend on him as the vassals of his royalty, and to illustrate his magnificence to the world. Has this excitement had an adequate cause? or has it been only the frenzy of the times, or a sort of meteorous exhalation from an idle and overexuberant soil? Let us examine our great poet, and dramatist, with the eye of impartial criticism; and then let the result of our examination form the reply to these interrogatories of doubt.

Shakspeare took his stories from any quarter, whence they were offered to him; from Italian novels; from histories; from old story-books; from old plays; and even from old ballads. In one instance, and in one alone, no prototype has been found for his fiction; and the whole of" The Tempest," from its first moving point to the plenitude of its existence, must be admitted to be the offspring of his wonderful imagination*. But whencesoever he drew the first suggestion of his story, or whatever might be its original substance, he soon converts it into an image of ivory and gold, like that of the Minerva of Phidias; and then, beyond the efficacy of the sculptor's art, he breathes into it the breath of life. This, indeed, is spoken only of his tragedies and comedies: for his histories, as they were first

* This, perhaps, may be affirmed also of "A Midsummer Night's Dream.”