Perhaps what I have here not dogmatically but deliberatively written, may recal the principles of the drama to a new examination. I am almost frighted at my own temerity; and when I estimate the fame and the strength of those that maintain the contrary opinion, am ready to sink down in reverential silence; as _aeneas_ withdrew from the defence of _Troy_, when he saw _Neptune_ shaking the wall, and _Juno_ heading the besiegers.
Those whom my arguments cannot persuade to give their approbation to the judgment of _Shakespeare_, will easily, if they consider the condition of his life, make some allowance for his ignorance.
Every man"s performances, to be rightly estimated, must be compared with the state of the age in which he lived, and with his own particular opportunities; and though to the reader a book be not worse or better for the circ.u.mstances of the authour, yet as there is always a silent reference of human works to human abilities, and as the enquiry, how far man may extend his designs, or how high he may rate his native force, is of far greater dignity than in what rank we shall place any particular performance, curiosity is always busy to discover the instruments, as well as to survey the workmanship, to know how much is to be ascribed to original powers, and how much to casual and advent.i.tious help. The palaces of _Peru_ or _Mexico_ were certainly mean and incommodious habitations, if compared to the houses of _European_ monarchs; yet who could forbear to view them with astonishment, who remembered that they were built without the use of iron?
The _English_ nation, in the time of _Shakespeare_, was yet struggling to emerge from barbarity. The philology of _Italy_ had been transplanted hither in the reign of _Henry_ the Eighth; and the learned languages had been successfully cultivated by _Lilly, Linacer_, and _More_; by _Pole, Cheke_, and _Gardiner_; and afterwards by _Smith, Clerk, Haddon_, and _Ascham_. Greek was now taught to boys in the princ.i.p.al schools; and those who united elegance with learning, read, with great diligence, the _Italian_ and _Spanish_ poets. But literature was yet confined to professed scholars, or to men and women of high rank. The publick was gross and dark; and to be able to read and write, was an accomplishment still valued for its rarity.
Nations, like individuals, have their infancy. A people newly awakened to literary curiosity, being yet unacquainted with the true state of things, knows not how to judge of that which is proposed as its resemblance. Whatever is remote from common appearances is always welcome to vulgar, as to childish credulity; and of a country unenlightened by learning, the whole people is the vulgar. The study of those who then aspired to plebeian learning was laid out upon adventures, giants, dragons, and enchantments. _The Death of Arthur was_ the favourite volume.
The mind, which has feasted on the luxurious wonders of fiction, has no taste of the insipidity of truth. A play which imitated only the common occurrences of the world, would, upon the admirers of _Palmerin_ and _Guy_ of _Warwick_, have made little impression; he that wrote for such an audience was under the necessity of looking round for strange events and fabulous transactions, and that incredibility, by which maturer knowledge is offended, was the chief recommendation of writings, to unskilful curiosity.
Our authour"s plots are generally borrowed from novels, and it is reasonable to suppose, that he chose the most popular, such as were read by many, and related by more; for his audience could not have followed him through the intricacies of the drama, had they not held the thread of the story in their hands.
The stories, which we now find only in remoter authours, were in his time accessible and familiar. The fable of _As you like it_, which is supposed to be copied from _Chaucer"s_ Gamelyn, was a little pamphlet of those times; and old Mr. _Cibber_ remembered the tale of _Hamlet_ in plain _English_ prose, which the criticks have now to seek in _Saxo Grammaticus._
His _English_ histories he took from _English_ chronicles and _English_ ballads; and as the ancient writers were made known to his countrymen by versions, they supplied him with new subjects; he dilated some of _Plutarch"s_ lives into plays, when they had been translated by _North_.
His plots, whether historical or fabulous, are always crouded with incidents, by which the attention of a rude people was more easily caught than by sentiment or argumentation; and such is the power of the marvellous even over those who despise it, that every man finds his mind more strongly seized by the tragedies of _Shakespeare_ than of any other writer; others please us by particular speeches, but he always makes us anxious for the event, and has perhaps excelled all but _Homer_ in securing the first purpose of a writer, by exciting restless and unquenchable curiosity and compelling him that reads his work to read it through. The shows and bustle with which his plays abound have the same original. As knowledge advances, pleasure pa.s.ses from the eye to the ear, but returns, as it declines, from the ear to the eye. Those to whom our authour"s labours were exhibited had more skill in pomps or processions than in poetical language, and perhaps wanted some visible and discriminated events, as comments on the dialogue. He knew how he should most please; and whether his practice is more agreeable to nature, or whether his example has prejudiced the nation, we still find that on our stage something must be done as well as said, and inactive declamation is very coldly heard, however musical or elegant, pa.s.sionate or sublime.
_Voltaire_ expresses his wonder, that our authour"s extravagances are endured by a nation, which has seen the tragedy of _Cato_. Let him be answered, that _Addison_ speaks the language of poets, and _Shakespeare_, of men. We find in _Cato_ innumerable beauties which enamour us of its authour, but we see nothing that acquaints us with human sentiments or human actions; we place it with the fairest and the n.o.blest progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning, but _Oth.e.l.lo_ is the vigorous and vivacious offspring of observation impregnated by genius. _Cato_ affords a splendid exhibition of artificial and fict.i.tious manners, and delivers just and n.o.ble sentiments, in diction easy, elevated and harmonious, but its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart; the composition refers us only to the writer; we p.r.o.nounce the name of _Cato_, but we think on _Addison_.
The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers; the composition of _Shakespeare_ is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and polished into brightness. _Shakespeare_ opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a ma.s.s of meaner minerals.
It has been much disputed, whether _Shakespeare_ owed his excellence to his own native force, or whether he had the common helps of scholastick education, the precepts of critical science, and the examples of ancient authours.
There has always prevailed a tradition, that _Shakespeare_ wanted learning, that he had no regular education, nor much skill in the dead languages. _Johnson_, his friend, affirms, that _he had small Latin, and no Greek_; who, besides that he had no imaginable temptation to falsehood, wrote at a time when the character and acquisitions of _Shakespeare_ were known to mult.i.tudes. His evidence ought therefore to decide the controversy, unless some testimony of equal force could be opposed.
Some have imagined, that they have discovered deep learning in many imitations of old writers; but the examples which I have known urged, were drawn from books translated in his time; or were such easy coincidences of thought, as will happen to all who consider the same subjects; or such remarks on life or axioms of morality as float in conversation, and are transmitted through the world in proverbial sentences.
I have found it remarked, that, in this important sentence, _Go before, I"ll follow_, we read a translation of, _I prae, sequar_. I have been told, that when _Caliban_, after a pleasing dream, says, _I cry"d to sleep again_, the authour imitates _Anacreon_, who had, like every other man, the same wish on the same occasion.
There are a few pa.s.sages which may pa.s.s for imitations, but so few, that the exception only confirms the rule; he obtained them from accidental quotations, or by oral communication, and as he used what he had, would have used more if he had obtained it.
The _Comedy of Errors_ is confessedly taken from the _Menaechmi_ of _Plautus_; from the only play of _Plautus_ which was then in _English_. What can be more probable, than that he who copied that, would have copied more; but that those which were not translated were inaccessible?
Whether he knew the modern languages is uncertain. That his plays have some _French_ scenes proves but little; he might easily procure them to be written, and probably, even though he had known the language in the common degree, he could not have written it without a.s.sistance. In the story of _Romeo_ and _Juliet_ he is observed to have followed the _English_ translation, where it deviates from the _Italian_; but this on the other part proves nothing against his knowledge of the original. He was to copy, not what he knew himself, but what was known to his audience.
It is most likely that he had learned _Latin_ sufficiently to make him acquainted with construction, but that he never advanced to an easy perusal of the _Roman_ authours. Concerning his skill in modern languages, I can find no sufficient ground of determination; but as no imitations of _French_ or _Italian_ authours have been discovered, though the _Italian_ poetry was then high in esteem, I am inclined to believe, that he read little more than _English_, and chose for his fables only such tales as he found translated.
That much knowledge is scattered over his works is very justly observed by _Pope_, but it is often such knowledge as books did not supply. He that will understand _Shakespeare_, must not be content to study him in the closet, he must look for his meaning sometimes among the sports of the field, and sometimes among the manufactures of the shop.
There is however proof enough that he was a very diligent reader, nor was our language then so indigent of books, but that he might very liberally indulge his curiosity without excursion into foreign literature. Many of the _Roman_ authours were translated, and some of the _Greek_; the reformation had filled the kingdom with theological learning; most of the topicks of human disquisition had found _English_ writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with diligence, but success. This was a stock of knowledge sufficient for a mind so capable of appropriating and improving it.
But the greater part of his excellence was the product of his own genius. He found the _English_ stage in a state of the utmost rudeness; no essays either in tragedy or comedy had appeared, from which it could be discovered to what degree of delight either one or other might be carried. Neither character nor dialogue were yet understood. _Shakespeare_ may be truly said to have introduced them both amongst us, and in some of his happier scenes to have carried them both to the utmost height.
By what gradations of improvement he proceeded, is not easily known; for the chronology of his works is yet unsettled. _Rowe_ is of opinion, that _perhaps we are not to look for his beginning, like those of other writers, in his least perfect works; art had so little, and nature so large a share in what he did, that for ought I know_, says he, _the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, were the best._ But the power of nature is only the power of using to any certain purpose the materials which diligence procures, or opportunity supplies. Nature gives no man knowledge, and when images are collected by study and experience, can only a.s.sist in combining or applying them. _Shakespeare_, however favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned; and as he must increase his ideals, like other mortals, by gradual acquisition, he, like them, grew wiser as he grew older, could display life better, as he knew it more, and instruct with more efficacy, as he was himself more amply instructed.
There is a vigilance of observation and accuracy of distinction which books and precepts cannot confer; from this almost all original and native excellence proceeds. _Shakespeare_ must have looked upon mankind with perspicacity, in the highest degree curious and attentive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, and diversify them only by the accidental appendages of present manners; the dress is a little varied, but the body is the same. Our authour had both matter and form to provide; for except the characters of _Chaucer_, to whom I think he is not much indebted, there were no writers in _English_, and perhaps not many in other modern languages, which shewed life in its native colours.
The contest about the original benevolence or malignity of man had not yet commenced. Speculation had not yet attempted to a.n.a.lyse the mind, to trace the pa.s.sions to their sources, to unfold the seminal principles of vice and virtue, or sound the depths of the heart for the motives of action. All those enquiries, which from that time that human nature became the fashionable study, have been made sometimes with nice discernment, but often with idle subtilty, were yet unattempted. The tales, with which the infancy of learning was satisfied, exhibited only the superficial appearances of action, related the events but omitted the causes, and were formed for such as delighted in wonders rather than in truth. Mankind was not then to be studied in the closet; he that would know the world, was under the necessity of gleaning his own remarks, by mingling as he could in its business and amus.e.m.e.nts.
_Boyle_ congratulated himself upon his high birth, because it favoured his curiosity, by facilitating his access. _Shakespeare_ had no such advantage; he came to _London_ a needy adventurer, and lived for a time by very mean employments. Many works of genius and learning have been performed in states of life, that appear very little favourable to thought or to enquiry; so many, that he who considers them is inclined to think that he sees enterprise and perseverance predominating over all external agency, and bidding help and hindrance vanish before them. The genius of _Shakespeare_ was not to be depressed by the weight of poverty, nor limited by the narrow conversation to which men in want are inevitably condemned; the inc.u.mbrances of his fortune were shaken from his mind, _as dewdrops from a lion"s mane_.
Though he had so many difficulties to encounter, and so little a.s.sistance to surmount them, he has been able to obtain an exact knowledge of many modes of life, and many casts of native dispositions; to vary them with great multiplicity; to mark them by nice distinctions; and to shew them in full view by proper combinations. In this part of his performances he had none to imitate, but has himself been imitated by all succeeding writers; and it may be doubted, whether from all his successors more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more rules of practical prudence, can be collected, than he alone has given to his country.
Nor was his attention confined to the actions of men; he was an exact surveyor of the inanimate world; his descriptions have always some peculiarities, gathered by contemplating things as they really exist.
It may be observed, that the oldest poets of many nations preserve their reputation, and that the following generations of wit, after a short celebrity, sink into oblivion. The first, whoever they be, must take their sentiments and descriptions immediately from knowledge; the resemblance is therefore just, their descriptions are verified by every eye, and their sentiments acknowledged by every breast. Those whom their fame invites to the same studies, copy partly them, and partly nature, till the books of one age gain such authority, as to stand in the place of nature to another, and imitation, always deviating a little, becomes at last capricious and casual.
_Shakespeare_, whether life or nature be his subject, shews plainly, that he has seen with his own eyes; he gives the image which he receives, not weakened or distorted by the intervention of any other mind; the ignorant feel his representations to be just, and the learned see that they are compleat.
Perhaps it would not be easy to find any authour, except _Homer_, who invented so much as _Shakespeare_, who so much advanced the studies which he cultivated, or effused so much novelty upon his age or country. The form, the characters, the language, and the shows of the _English_ drama are his, _He seems_, says _Dennis, to have been the very original of our_ English _tragical harmony, that is, the harmony of blank verse, diversified often by dissyllable and trissyllable terminations. For the diversity distinguishes it from heroick harmony, and by bringing it nearer to common use makes it more proper to gain attention, and more fit for action and dialogue. Such verse we make when we are writing prose; we make such verse in common conversation_.
I know not whether this praise is rigorously just. The dissyllable termination, which the critic rightly appropriates to the drama, is to be found, though, I think, not in _Gorboduc_ which is confessedly before our author; yet in _Hieronnymo_, of which the date is not certain, but which there is reason to believe at least as old as his earliest plays. This however is certain, that he is the first who taught either tragedy or comedy to please, there being no theatrical piece of any older writer, of which the name is known, except to antiquaries and collectors of books, which are sought because they are scarce, and would not have been scarce, had they been much esteemed.
To him we must ascribe the praise, unless _Spenser_ may divide it with him, of having first discovered to how much smoothness and harmony the _English_ language could be softened. He has speeches, perhaps sometimes scenes, which have all the delicacy of _Rowe_, without his effeminacy. He endeavours indeed commonly to strike by the force and vigour of his dialogue, but he never executes his purpose better, than when he tries to sooth by softness.
Yet it must be at last confessed, that as we owe every thing to him, he owes something to us; that, if much of his praise is paid by perception and judgement, much is likewise given by custom and veneration. We fix our eyes upon his graces, and turn them from his deformities, and endure in him what we should in another loath or despise. If we endured without praising, respect for the father of our drama might excuse us; but I have seen, in the book of some modern critick, a collection of anomalies, which shew that he has corrupted language by every mode of depravation, but which his admirer has acc.u.mulated as a monument of honour.
He has scenes of undoubted and perpetual excellence, but perhaps not one play, which, if it were now exhibited as the work of a contemporary writer, would be heard to the conclusion. I am indeed far from thinking, that his works were wrought to his own ideas of perfection; when they were such as would satisfy the audience, they satisfied the writer. It is seldom that authours, though more studious of fame than _Shakespeare_, rise much above the standard of their own age; to add a little of what is best will always be sufficient for present praise, and those who find themselves exalted into fame, are willing to credit their encomiasts, and to spare the labour of contending with themselves.
It does not appear, that _Shakespeare_ thought his works worthy of posterity, that he levied any ideal tribute upon future times, or had any further prospect, than of present popularity and present profit.
When his plays had been acted, his hope was at an end; he solicited no addition of honour from the reader. He therefore made no scruple to repeat the same jests in many dialogues, or to entangle different plots by the same knot of perplexity, which may be at least forgiven him, by those who recollect, that of _Congreve"s_ four comedies, two are concluded by a marriage in a mask, by a deception, which perhaps never happened, and which, whether likely or not, he did not invent.
So careless was this great poet of future fame, that, though he retired to ease and plenty, while he was yet little _declined into the vale of years_, before he could be disgusted with fatigue, or disabled by infirmity, he made no collection of his works, nor desired to rescue those that had been already published from the depravations that obscured them, or secure to the rest a better destiny, by giving them to the world in their genuine state.
Of the plays which bear the name of _Shakespeare_ in the late editions, the greater part were not published till about seven years after his death, and the few which appeared in his life are apparently thrust into the world without the care of the authour, and therefore probably without his knowledge.
Of all the publishers, clandestine or professed, their negligence and unskilfulness has by the late revisers been sufficiently shown.
The faults of all are indeed numerous and gross, and have not only corrupted many pa.s.sages perhaps beyond recovery, but have brought others into suspicion, which are only obscured by obsolete phraseology, or by the writer"s unskilfulness and affectation. To alter is more easy than to explain, and temerity is a more common quality than diligence. Those who saw that they must employ conjecture to a certain degree, were willing to indulge it a little further. Had the author published his own works, we should have sat quietly down to disentangle his intricacies, and clear his obscurities; but now we tear what we cannot loose, and eject what we happen not to understand.
The faults are more than could have happened without the concurrence of many causes. The stile of _Shakespeare_ was in itself ungrammatical, perplexed and obscure; his works were transcribed for the players by those who may be supposed to have seldom understood them; they were transmitted by copiers equally unskilful, who still multiplied errours; they were perhaps sometimes mutilated by the actors, for the sake of shortening the speeches; and were at last printed without correction of the press.
In this state they remained, not as Dr. _Warburton_ supposes, because they were unregarded, but because the editor"s art was not yet applied to modern languages, and our ancestors were accustomed to so much negligence of _English_ printers, that they could very patiently endure it. At last an edition was undertaken by _Rowe_; not because a poet was to be published by a poet, for _Rowe_ seems to have thought very little on correction or explanation, but that our authour"s works might appear like those of his fraternity, with the appendages of a life and recommendatory preface. _Rowe_ has been clamorously blamed for not performing what he did not undertake, and it is time that justice be done him, by confessing, that though he seems to have had no thought of corruption beyond the printer"s errours, yet he has made many emendations, if they were not made before, which his successors have received without acknowledgement, and which, if they had produced them, would have filled pages and pages with censures of the stupidity by which the faults were committed, with displays of the absurdities which they involved, with ostentatious expositions of the new reading, and self congratulations on the happiness of discovering it.
Of _Rowe_, as of all the editors, I have preserved the preface, and have likewise retained the authour"s life, though not written with much elegance or spirit; it relates however what is now to be known, and therefore deserves to pa.s.s through all succeeding publications.
The nation had been for many years content enough with Mr. _Rowe"s_ performance, when Mr. _Pope_ made them acquainted with the true state of _Shakespeare"s_ text, shewed that it was extremely corrupt, and gave reason to hope that there were means of reforming it. He collated the old copies, which none had thought to examine before, and restored many lines to their integrity; but, by a very compendious criticism, he rejected whatever he disliked, and thought more of amputation than of cure.
I know not why he is commended by Dr. _Warburton_ for distinguishing the genuine from the spurious plays. In this choice he exerted no judgement of his own; the plays which he received, were given by _Hemings_ and _Condel,_ the first editors; and those which he rejected, though, according to the licentiousness of the press in those times, they were printed during _Shakespeare"s_ life, with his name, had been omitted by his friends, and were never added to his works before the edition of 1664, from which they were copied by the later printers.
This was a work which _Pope_ seems to have thought unworthy of his abilities, being not able to suppress his contempt of _the dull duty of an editor_. He understood but half his undertaking. The duty of a collator is indeed dull, yet, like other tedious tasks, is very necessary; but an emendatory critick would ill discharge his duty, without qualities very different from dullness. In perusing a corrupted piece, he must have before him all possibilities of meaning, with all possibilities of expression. Such must be his comprehension of thought, and such his copiousness of language. Out of many readings possible, he must be able to select that which best suits with the state, opinions, and modes of language prevailing in every age, and with his authour"s particular cast of thought, and turn of expression.
Such must be his knowledge, and such his taste. Conjectural criticism demands more than humanity possesses, and he that exercises it with most praise has very frequent need of indulgence. Let us now be told no more of the dull duty of an editor.
Confidence is the common consequence of success. They whose excellence of any kind has been loudly celebrated, are ready to conclude, that their powers are universal. _Pope"s_ edition fell below his own expectations, and he was so much offended, when he was found to have left any thing for others to do, that he past the latter part of his life in a state of hostility with verbal criticism.
I have retained all his notes, that no fragment of so great a writer may be lost; his preface, valuable alike for elegance of composition and justness of remark, and containing a general criticism on his authour, so extensive, that little can be added, and so exact, that little can be disputed, every editor has an interest to suppress, but that every reader would demand its insertion.
_Pope_ was succeeded by _Theobald_, a man of narrow comprehension and small acquisitions, with no native and intrinsick splendour of genius, with little of the artificial light of learning, but zealous for minute accuracy, and not negligent in pursuing it. He collated the ancient copies, and rectified many errours. A man so anxiously scrupulous might have been expected to do more, but what little he did was commonly right.
In his report of copies and editions he is not to be trusted, without examination. He speaks sometimes indefinitely of copies, when he has only one. In his enumeration of editions, he mentions the two first folios as of high, and the third folio as of middle authority; but the truth is, that the first is equivalent to all others, and that the rest only deviate from it by the printer"s negligence. Whoever has any of the folios has all, excepting those diversities which mere reiteration of editions will produce. I collated them all at the beginning, but afterwards used only the first.