FullReads

Some of the lines with which I had been perplexed, have been, indeed, so fortunate as to attract his regard; and it is not without all the satisfaction which it is usual to express on such occasions, that I find an entire agreement between us in substituting [see Note II.] quarrel for quarry, and in explaining the adage of the cat, [Note XVII.] But this pleasure is, like most others, known only to be regretted; for I have the unhappiness to find no such conformity with regard to any other passage.

The line which I have endeavoured to amend, Note XI. is, likewise, attempted by the new editor, and is, perhaps, the only passage in the play in which he has not submissively admitted the emendations of foregoing criticks. Instead of the common reading,

–Doing every thing
Safe towards your love and honour,

he has published,

–Doing every thing
Shap’d towards your love and honour.

This alteration, which, like all the rest attempted by him, the reader is expected to admit, without any reason alleged in its defence, is, in my opinion, more plausible than that of Mr. Theobald: whether it is right, I am not to determine.

In the passage which I have altered in Note XL. an emendation is, likewise, attempted in the late edition, where, for,

–and the chance of goodness
Be like our warranted quarrel,

is substituted–and the chance in goodness–whether with more or less elegance, dignity, and propriety, than the reading which I have offered, I must again decline the province of deciding.

Most of the other emendations which he has endeavoured, whether with good or bad fortune, are too trivial to deserve mention. For surely the weapons of criticism ought not to be blunted against an editor, who can imagine that he is restoring poetry, while he is amusing himself with alterations like these: for,

–This is the sergeant,
Who like a good and hardy soldier fought;
–This is the sergeant, who
Like a right good and hardy soldier fought.

For,

–Dismay’d not this
Our captains Macbeth and Banquo?–Yes;

–Dismay’d not this
Our captains brave Macbeth and Banquo?–Yes.

Such harmless industry may, surely, be forgiven, if it cannot be praised: may he, therefore, never want a monosyllable, who can use it with such wonderful dexterity.

Rumpatur quisquis rumpitur invidia!

The rest of this edition I have not read, but, from the little that I have seen, think it not dangerous to declare that, in my opinion, its pomp recommends it more than its accuracy. There is no distinction made between the ancient reading, and the innovations of the editor; there is no reason given for any of the alterations which are made; the emendations of former criticks are adopted without any acknowledgment, and few of the difficulties are removed which have hitherto embarrassed the readers of Shakespeare.

I would not, however, be thought to insult the editor, nor to censure him with too much petulance, for having failed in little things, of whom I have been told, that he excels in greater. But I may, without indecency, observe, that no man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself; and that those who, like Themistocles, have studied the arts of policy, and “can teach a small state how to grow great,” should, like him, disdain to labour in trifles, and consider petty accomplishments as below their ambition.[5]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is, at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God, in various passages both of the Old and New Testament: and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath, in its turn, borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well-attested, or by prohibitory laws, which, at least, suppose the possibility of commerce with evil spirits.” Blackstone, Commentaries iv. 60. The learned judge, however, concludes with calling it a “dubious crime,” and approves the maxim of the philosophic Montesquieu, whom no one would lightly accuse of superstition, that “il faut etre tres circonspect dans la poursuite de la magie et de l’heresie.” Esprit des Lois, xii. 5. Selden attempted to justify the punishing of witchcraft capitally. Works, iii. 2077. See Spectator, 117. Barrington’s Ancient Statutes, 407.

[2] In Nashe’s Lenten Stuff, 1599, it is said, that no less than six hundred witches were executed at one time. Reed.–Boswell’s Shakespeare, xi. 5. Dr. Grey, in his notes on Hudibras, mentions, that Hopkins the noted witch-finder hanged sixty suspected witches in one year. He also cites Hutchinson on Witchcraft for thirty thousand having been burnt in 150 years. See Barrington on Ancient Statutes.

[3] Johnson’s apprehensions here are surely unfounded. The region of Fancy, however, in his mind, was very circumscribed. Mrs. Montague’s chapter on Shakespeare’s Preternatural Beings, in her excellent Essay, will repay perusal. See too Schlegel on Dramatic Literature.

[4] Compare the Incantations of the Erichtho of Lucan, the Canidie of Horace, the Cantata of Salvator Rosa, “all’ incanto all’ incante,” and the Eumenides of AEschylus. The Gothic wildness of Shakespeare’s “weird sisters” will thence be better appreciated.–Ed.

[5] These excellent observations extorted praise from the supercilious Warburton himself. In the Preface to his Shakespeare, published two years after the appearance of Johnson’s anonymous pamphlet, he thus alludes to it: “As to all those things which have been published under the titles of Essays, Remarks, Observations, etc. on Shakespeare, (if you except some critical notes on Macbeth, given as a specimen of a projected edition, and written, as appears, by a man of parts and genius,) the rest are absolutely below a serious notice.” According to Boswell, Johnson ever retained a grateful remembrance of this distinguished compliment; “He praised me,” said he, “at a time when praise was of value to me.” Boswell, I. Johnson affixed to this tract, proposals for a Shakespeare in 10 volumes, 18mo. price, to subscribers, 1l 5s. in sheets, half-a-guinea of which moderate sum was to be deposited at the time of subscription. The following fuller proposals were published in 1756; but they were not realized until the lapse of nine years from that period. Boswell, I.–Ed.