this apparatus criticus, if we may believe Warburton, 'when that illustrious body, the University of Oxford, in their public capacity, undertook an edition of Shakespeare by subscription,' Sir T. Hanmer 'thrust himself into the employment.'

Whether from the sanction thus given, or from its typographical beauty, or from the plausibility of its new readings, this edition continued in favour, and even 'rose to the price of 107. 10s. before it was reprinted in 1770-1, while Pope's, in quarto, at the same period sold off at Tonson's sale for 16s. per copy.' Bohn, p. 2260.

In 1747, three years after Pope's death, another edition of Shakespeare based upon his appeared, edited by Mr Warburton.

On the title-page are these words: 'The Genuine Text (collated with all the former Editions, and then corrected and emended) is here settled: Being restored from the Blunders of the first Editors, and the Interpolations of the two Last: with a Comment and Notes, Critical and Explanatory. By Mr Pope and Mr Warburton*.'

The latter, in his preface, vehemently attacks Theobald and Hanmer, accusing both of plagiarism and even fraud. "The one was recommended to me as a poor Man, the other as a poor Critic: and to each of them, at different times, I communicated a great number of Observations, which they managed as they saw fit to the Relief of their several distresses. As to Mr Theobald, who wanted Money, I allowed him to print what I gave him for his own Advantage: and he allowed himself in the Liberty of taking one Part for his own, and sequestering another for the Benefit, as I supposed, of some future Edition. But as to the Oxford Editor, who wanted nothing, but what he might very well be without, the reputation of a Critic, I could not so easily forgive him for trafficking in my Papers without my knowledge; and when that Project fail'd, for employing a number of my

* Notwithstanding this claim of identity, Warburton seems to have used Theobald's text to print from. Capell positively affirms this (Preface, p. 18).

Conjectures in his Edition against my express Desire not to have that Honour done unto me.'

Again he says of Hanmer: 'Having a number of my Conjectures before him, he took as many as he saw fit to work upon, and by changing them to something, he thought, synonimous or similar, he made them his own,' &c. &c. p. xii.

Of his own performance Warburton says, "The Notes in this Edition take in the whole Compass of Criticism. The first sort is employed in restoring the Poet's genuine Text; but in those places only where it labours with inextricable Nonsense. In which, how much soever I may have given scope to critical Conjecture, when the old Copies failed me, I have indulged nothing to Fancy or Imagination; but have religiously observed the severe Canons of literal Criticism, &c. &c.' p. xiv. Yet further on he says, 'These, such as they are, were amongst my younger amusements, when, many years ago I used to turn over these sort of Writers to unbend myself from more serious applications.'

The excellence of the edition proved to be by no means proportionate to the arrogance of the editor. His text is, indeed, better than Pope's, inasmuch as he introduced many of Theobald's restorations and some probable emendations both of his own and of the two editors whom he so unsparingly denounced, but there is no trace whatever, so far as we have discovered, of his having collated for himself either the earlier Folios or any of the Quartos.

Warburton* was, in his turn, severely criticised by Dr Zachary Grey, and Mr John Upton, in 1746, and still more severely by Mr Thomas Edwards, in his Supplement to Mr Warburton's edition of Shakespeare, 1747. The third edition of Mr Edwards's book, 1750, was called Canons of Criticism

* Dr Johnson told Burney that Warburton, as a critic, 'would make two-andfifty Theobalds cut into slices.' (Boswell's Life of Johnson, Vol. 11. p. 85. Ed. 1835). From this judgment, whether they be compared as critics or editors, we emphatically dissent.

and Glossary, being a Supplement, &c. This title is a sarcastic allusion to two passages in Warburton's preface: 'I once intended to have given the Reader a body of Canons, for literal Criticism, drawn out in form,' &c. p. xiv, and ‘I had it once, indeed, in my design, to give a general alphabetic Glossary of these terms,' &c. p. xvi. Dr Grey's attack was reprinted, with additions, and a new title, in 1751, and again in 1752. Warburton and his predecessors were passed in review also by Mr Benjamin Heath, in A Revisal of Shakespeare's text, 1765.

Dr Samuel Johnson first issued proposals for a new edition of Shakespeare in 1745, but met with no encouragement. He resumed the scheme in 1756, and issued a new set of Proposals (reprinted in Malone's preface), 'in which,' says Boswell, 'he shewed that he perfectly well knew what a variety of research such an undertaking required, but his indolence prevented him from pursuing it with that diligence, which alone can collect those scattered facts that genius, however acute, penetrating, and luminous, cannot discover by its own force.' Johnson deceived himself so far, as to the work to be done and his own energy in doing it, that he promised the publication of the whole before the end of the following year. Yet, though some volumes were printed as early as 1758 (Boswell, Vol. 11. p. 84), it was not published till 1765, and might never have been published at all, but for Churchill's stinging satire :

'He for subscribers baits his hook,

And takes your cash, but where's the book?

No matter where; wise fear, you know,

Forbids the robbing of a foe,

But what, to serve our private ends,

Forbids the cheating of our friends?'

Not only Johnson's constitutional indolence and desultory habits, but also the deficiency of his eye-sight, incapacitated him for the task of minute collation. Nevertheless, he did consult the older copies, and has the merit of restoring some

readings which had escaped Theobald. He had not systematically studied the literature and language of the 16th and 17th centuries; he did not always appreciate the naturalness, simplicity, and humour of his author, but his preface and notes are distinguished by clearness of thought and diction and by masterly common sense. He used Warburton's text, to print his own from. The readings and suggestions attributed to 'Johnson,' in our notes, are derived either from the edition of 1765, or from those which he furnished to the subsequent editions in which Steevens was his co-editor. Some few also found by the latter in Johnson's hand on the margin of his copy of 'Warburton,' purchased by Steevens at Johnson's sale, were incorporated in later editions. Johnson's edition was attacked with great acrimony by Dr Kenrick, 1765 (Boswell, Vol. 11. p. 300). It disappointed the public expectation, but reached, nevertheless, a second edition in 1768. Tyrwhitt's Observations and Conjectures were published anonymously in 1766.

Capell's edition (10 volumes, small 8vo) was not published till 1768, though part of it had gone to press, as the editor himself tells us, in September, 1760. It contained the Plays in the order of the first and second Folios, with a preface, of which Dr Johnson said, referring to Tempest, I. 2. 356, 'The fellow should have come to me, and I would have endowed his purpose with words. As it is he doth gabble monstrously.'

Defects of style apart, this preface was by far the most valuable contribution to Shakespearian criticism that had yet appeared, and the text was based upon a most searching collation of all the Folios and of all the Quartos known to exist at that time. Capell's own conjectures, not always very happy, which he has introduced into his text, are distinguished by being printed in black letter.

The edition before us contains the scansion of the lines, with occasional verbal as well as metrical corrections, marked in red ink, in Capell's hand. This was done, as he tells us in a note prefixed to Vol. I., in 1769.

He described, much more minutely than Pope had done, the places of the scenes, and made many changes, generally for the better, in the stage directions.

In his peculiar notation, Asides are marked by inverted commas, and obvious stage business is indicated by an obelus. In a note to his preface, p. xxiii, Capell says:

'In the manuscripts from which all these plays are printed, the emendations are given to their proper owners by initials and other marks that are in the margin of those manuscripts; but they are suppressed in the print for two reasons: First their number, in some pages, makes them a little unsightly; and the editor professes himself weak enough to like a well-printed book; in the next place, he does declare, that his only object has been to do service to his Author; which provided it be done, he thinks it of small importance by what hand the service was administer'd,' &c.

By this unfortunate decision, Capell deprived his book of almost all its interest and value*. And thus his unequalled zeal and industry have never received from the public the recognition they deserved.

In 1774, a volume of notest was printed in quarto, and in 1783, two years after his death, appeared Notes, Various Readings, and the School of Shakespeare, 3 vols. 4to. The printing of this work was begun in 1779.

+

George Steevens, who had edited in 1766 a reprint of Twenty of the Plays of Shakespeare from the Quartos, at a time,

* We trust that in our edition the matter which Capell discarded has been presented in a well printed book. We have found no trace of the Manuscripts here spoken of.

+ In Lowndes's Manual (Bohn), p. 2316, we find 'Notes and Various Readings to Shakespeare. By Edward Capell, Lond. 1759.' No such book of this date is in the Capell collection, nor is it ever mentioned elsewhere, so far as we know. In the preface to the work of 1783, it is mentioned that the first volume had been printed in 1774, but no allusion is made to any former edition.

These volumes, together with the whole of Shakespeare's Plays and Milton's Paradise Lost, written out in Capell's own regular, but not very legible hand, are among his collection in Trinity College Library.