or SHAKESPEARE, William, the prince of dramatic writers, was born at Stratford upon Avon in Warwickshire, on the 23rd of April 1564. From the register of that town, it appears that a plague broke out there on the 30th of June following, which raged with great violence; but fortunately it did not reach the house in which this infant prodigy lay. His father, John Shakespear, enjoyed a small patrimonial estate, and was a considerable dealer in wool; his mother was the daughter and heir of Robert Arden of Wellingcote. Our illustrious poet being designed for the business of his father, received no better education than the instructions which the free-school of Stratford could afford. After applying some time to the study of Latin, he was called home to assist his father, who seems by some accident to have been reduced in his circumstances. Before arriving at the age of 19, he married the daughter of Mr Hathaway, a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford. This lady was eight years older than her husband. Having the misfortune to fall into bad company, he was seduced into some profligate actions, which drew on him a criminal prosecution, and at length forced him to take refuge in the capital. In concert with his associates, he broke into a park belonging to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, and carried off some of his deer. Every admirer of Shakespeare will regret that such a blemish should have stained his character; but, perhaps, if anything can extenuate his guilt, we might ascribe it to the opinions of the age, which, perhaps, as was formerly the case in Scotland, might not distinguish the killing of deer by any mark of disgrace, or any charge of criminality. One thing at least is certain, that Shakespeare himself thought that the prosecution which Sir Thomas raised against him was carried on with too great severity; an opinion which he could not have entertained had this action been at that time viewed in the same criminal light as it is at present. Shakespeare testified his resentment against Sir Thomas, by writing a satirical ballad, which exaggerated him so much, that the process was carried on with redoubled violence; and the young poet, in order to avoid the punishment of the law, was obliged to make his escape. This ballad would be considered as a curious relic, on account of its being the first production of Shakespeare; it would also be interesting to peruse a poem which could irritate the baronet to so high a degree. Tradition has preserved the first stanza:
A parlament member, a justice of peace, At home a poor scarecrow, at London an ass. If lowly is Lucy, as some volke nifcalle it, Then Lucy is lowly whatever befell it: He thinks himselfe greate, Yet an ass in his state, We allowe by his ears, but with asses to mate. If Lucy is lowly, as some volke nifcalle it, Sing lowly Lucy whatever befell it.
If the rest of the ballad was of a piece with this stanza, it might assist us to form some opinion of the irritability of the baronet, but will enable us to form no idea of the opening genius of Shakespeare.
Thus expelled from his native village, he repaired to London, where he was glad to accept a subordinate office in the theatre. It has been said that he was first engaged, while the play was acting, in holding the horses of those who rode to the theatre; but this story rests on a slender foundation. As his name is found printed among those of the other players before some old plays, it is probable that he was some time employed as an actor; but we are not informed what characters he played; we are only told, that the part which he acted best was that of the Ghost in Hamlet; and that he appeared in the character of Adam in As you like it. If the names of the actors prefixed to Ben Jonson's play of Every Man in his Humour were arranged in the same order as the persons represented, which is very probable, Shakespeare played the part of Old Knowell. We have reason therefore to suppose, as far as we can argue from these few facts, that he generally represented old men. See Malone's Chronology, in his edition of Shakespeare.
But though he was not qualified to shine as an actor, he was now in the situation which could most effectually rouse those latent sparks of genius which afterwards burst forth with so resplendent a flame. Being well acquainted with the mechanical business of the theatre and the taste of the times; possessed of a knowledge of the characters of men resembling intuition, an imagination that ranged at large through nature, selecting the grand, the sublime, and the beautiful; a judicious caution, that disposed him to prefer those plots which had already been found to please; an uncommon fluency
(A) The beautiful red Turkey leather is dyed with cochineal prepared in the same manner. Professor Gmelin junior, in the second part of his Travels through Russia, explains the herb schogann by artemisia annua, having doubts been deceived by the appearance the plant acquires after it has been dried. Besides, this artemisia is found only in the middle of Siberia, and never on the west side of the Irtitch. fluency and force of expression; he was qualified at once to eclipse all who had gone before him.
Notwithstanding the unrivalled genius of Shakespeare, most of his plots were the invention of others; which, however, he certainly much improved, if he did not entirely new-model. We are assured, that prior to the theatrical compositions of Shakespeare, dramatic pieces were written on the following subjects, viz. King John, King Richard II. and III., King Henry IV. and V., King Henry VIII., King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, the Merchant of Venice, the Taming of a Shrew, and the Comedy of Errors.
Among his patrons, the earl of Southampton is particularly honoured by him, in the dedication of two poems, Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece; in the latter especially, he expressed himself in such terms as gives countenance to what is related of that patron's distinguished generosity to him. In the beginning of King James I.'s reign (if not sooner) he was one of the principal managers of the playhouse, and continued in it several years afterwards; till, having acquired such a fortune as satisfied his moderate wishes and views in life, he quitted the stage, and all other bufettes, and passed the remainder of his time in an honourable estate, at his native town of Stratford, where he lived in a handsome house of his own purchasing, to which he gave the name of New Place; and he had the good fortune to save it from the flames in the dreadful fire that consumed the greatest part of the town in 1614.
In the beginning of the year 1616, he made his will, wherein he testified his respect to his quondam partners in the theatre: he appointed his youngest daughter, jointly with her husband, his executors, and bequeathed to them the best part of his estate, which they came into the possession of not long after. He died on the 23rd of April following, being the 53rd year of his age; and was interred among his ancestors on the north side of the chancel, in the great church of Stratford, where there is a handsome monument erected for him, inscribed with the following elegiac distich in Latin:
Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, Terra tegit, Populus moret, Olympus habet.
In the year 1749, another very noble one was raised to his memory, at the public expense, in Westminster abbey; an ample contribution for this purpose being made upon exhibiting his tragedy of Julius Caesar, at the theatre-royal in Drury-Lane, April 28th 1738.
Nor must we omit mentioning another testimony of the veneration paid to his names by the public in general, which is, that a mulberry-tree planted upon his estate by the hands of this revered bard, was cut down not many years ago; and the wood being converted to several domestic uses, was all eagerly bought at a high price, and each single piece treasured up by its purchaser as a precious memorial of the planter.
The character of Shakespeare as a dramatic writer has been often drawn, but perhaps never with more accuracy than by the pen of Dr Johnson: "Shakespeare (says he) is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will always find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets, a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare, it is commonly a species.
"It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruction is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakespeare with practical axioms and domestic wisdom. It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence. Yet his real power is not shown in the splendor of particular passages, but by the progress of his fable, and the tenor of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen.
"Upon every other stage the universal agent is love, by whose power all good and evil is distributed, and every action quickened or retarded. But love is only one of many passions; and as it has no great influence upon the sum of life, it has little operation in the dramas of a poet who caught his ideas from the living world, and exhibited only what he saw before him. He knew that any other passion, as it was regular or exorbitant, was a cause of happiness or calamity.
"Characters thus ample and general were not easily discriminated and preserved; yet perhaps no poet ever kept his personages more distinct from each other.
"Other dramatists can only gain attention by hyperbolical or aggravated characters, by fabulous and unexampled excellence or depravity, as the writers of barbarous romances invigorated the reader by a giant and a dwarf; and he that should form his expectations of human affairs from the play, or from the tale, would be equally deceived. Shakespeare has no heroes, his scenes are occupied only by men, who act and speak as the reader thinks that he should himself have spoken or acted on the same occasion: Even where the agency is supernatural, the dialogue is level with life. Other writers disguise the most natural passions and most frequent incidents; so that he who contemplates them in the book will not know them in the world: Shakespeare approximates the remote, and familiarizes the wonderful; the event which he represents will not happen, but if it were possible, its effects would probably be such as he has assigned; and it may be said, that he has not only shown human nature as it acts in real exigencies, but as it would be found in trials to which it cannot be exposed.
"This therefore is the praise of Shakespeare, that his drama is the mirror of life; that he who has mazed his imagination, in following the phantoms which other writers raise up before him, may here be cured of his delirious ecstasies, by reading human sentiments in human language: by scenes from which a hermit may effi... mate the transfigurations of the world, and a confessor predict the progress of the passions."
The learning of Shakespeare has frequently been a subject of inquiry. That he possessed much classical knowledge does not appear, yet he was certainly acquainted with the Latin poets, particularly with Terence, as Colman has justly remarked, which appears from his using the word thrafonical. Nor was he unacquainted with French and Italian. We are indeed told, that the pallages in which these languages occur might be imperious additions of the players; but is it probable, that any of the players so far surpassed Shakespeare?
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. "There is, however, proof enough (says Dr Johnson) 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 authors were translated, and some of the Greek; the Reformation had filled the kingdom with theological learning; most of the topics of human disquisition had found English writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with diligence, but success. This was a flock of knowledge sufficient for a mind so capable of appropriating and improving it."
The works of Shakespeare consist of 35 dramatic pieces. The following is the chronological order which Mr Malone has endeavoured to establish, after a minute investigation, in which he has in general been successful:
1. First Part of King Henry VI. - 1589 2. Second Part of King Henry VI. - 1591 3. Third Part of King Henry VI. - 1591 4. A Midsummer Night's Dream - 1592 5. Comedy of Errors - 1593 6. Taming of the Shrew - 1594 7. Love's Labour Lost - 1594 8. Two Gentlemen of Verona - 1595 9. Romeo and Juliet - 1595 10. Hamlet - 1596 11. King John - 1596 12. King Richard II. - 1597 13. King Richard III. - 1597 14. First Part of King Henry IV. - 1597 15. Second Part of King Henry IV. - 1598 16. The Merchant of Venice - 1598 17. All's Well that Ends Well - 1598 18. King Henry V. - 1599 19. Much Ado about Nothing - 1600 20. As you like it - 1600 21. Merry Wives of Windsor - 1601 22. King Henry VIII. - 1601 23. Troilus and Cressida - 1602 24. Measure for Measure - 1603 25. The Winter's Tale - 1604 26. King Lear - 1605 27. Cymbeline - 1605 28. Macbeth - 1606 29. Julius Caesar - 1607 30. Antony and Cleopatra - 1608 31. Timon of Athens - 1609 32. Coriolanus - 1610 33. Othello - 1611 34. The Tempest - 1612 35. Twelfth Night - 1614
The first three of these, Mr Malone thinks, there is very strong reason to believe are not the original productions of Shakespeare; but that he probably altered them, and added some new scenes.
In the first folio edition in 1623, these plays were entitled "Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies." They have been published by various editors. The first folio edition by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount; the second, folio, 1632, by Thomas Cotes for Robert Allot; the third, 1664, for P.C.; the fourth, 1685, for H. Herringman, E. Brewster, and R. Bentley. Rowe published an 8vo edition in 1709, in 7 vols, and a 12mo edition in 1714, in 9 vols, for which he received 36l. 10s. Pope published a 4to edition in 1725, in 6 vols, and a 12mo in 1728, in 10 vols; for which he was paid 217l. 12s. Theobald gave a new edition in 8vo in 1733, in 7 vols, another in 12mo in 1740, in 8 vols; and received for his labour 652l. 10s. Sir Thomas Hanmer published an edition in 1744, in 6 vols 4to. Dr Warburton's 8vo edition came out in 1747, in 8 vols; for which he was paid 560l. The editions published since that time, are Dr Johnson's in 1765, in 8 vols 8vo. Stevens's in 1766, in 4 vols 8vo. Capell's in 1768, in 10 vols, crown 8vo; for this the author was paid 300l. A second edition of Hanmer's in 1771, 6 vols. Johnson's and Stevens's in 1773, in 10 vols 8vo; a second edition in 1778; a third by Reed in 1785; and Malone's crown 8vo edition in 1789, in 10 vols.
The most authentic of the old editions is that of 1623. "At last (says Dr Johnson) 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 author'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 errors, yet he has made many emendations, if they were not made before, which his successors have received without acknowledgment, and which, if they had produced them, would have filled 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."
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, showed that it was extremely corrupt, and gave reason to hope that there were means of reforming it. Mr Pope's edition, however, he observes, fell below his own expectations; and he was so much offended, when he was found to have left anything for others to do, that he passed the latter part of his life in a state of hostility with verbal criticism.
The only task, in the opinion of Mr Malone, for which Pope was eminently and indisputably qualified, was to mark the faults and beauties of his author. When he undertook the office of a commentator, every anomaly of language, and every expression that was currently in use, were considered as errors or corruptions, and the text was altered or amended, as it was called, at pleasure. Pope is openly charged with being one of the great corruptors of Shakespeare's text.
Pope was succeeded by Theobald, who collated the ancient copies, and rectified many errors. He was, however, a man of narrow comprehension and of little learning, and what is worse, in his reports of copies and editions, he is not to be trusted without examination. From the liberties taken by Pope, the edition of Theobald was justly preferred, because he professed to adhere to the ancient copies more strictly, and illustrated a few passages by extracts from the writers of our poet's age. Still, however, he was a considerable innovator; and while a few arbitrary changes made by Pope were detected, innumerable sophifications were silently adopted.
Sir Thomas Hanmer, who comes next, was a man of critical abilities, and of extensive learning. His corrections are commonly just, but sometimes capricious. He is censurable, too, for receiving without examination almost all the innovations of Pope.
The original and predominant error of Warburton's commentary, is acquiescence in his first thoughts; that precipitation which is produced by confusion of quick discernment; and that confidence which presumes to do, by surveying the surface, what labour only can perform, by penetrating to the bottom. His notes exhibit sometimes perverse interpretations, and sometimes improbable conjectures; he at one time gives the author more profundity of meaning than the sentence admits, and at another discovers absurdities where the sense is plain to every other reader. But his emendations are likewise often happy and just; and his interpretation of obscure passages learned and sagacious.
It has indeed been said by his defenders, that his great object was to display his own learning; and certainly, in spite of the clamour raised against him for substituting his own chimerical conceits instead of the genuine text of Shakespeare, his work increased his reputation. But as it is of little value as a commentary on Shakespeare, since Warburton is now gone, his work will probably soon sink into oblivion.
In 1765 Dr Johnson's edition, which had long been impatiently expected, was given to the public. His vigorous and comprehensive understanding threw more light on his author than all his predecessors had done. The character which he gave of each play is generally just. His refutation of the false glosses of Theobald and Warburton, and his numerous explications of involved and difficult passages, entitle him to the gratitude of every admirer of Shakespeare.
The last editor is Mr Malone, who was eight years employed in preparing his edition. By collating the most authentic copies, he has been careful to purify the text. He has been so industrious, in order to discover the meaning of the author, that he has ransacked many volumes, and truths that, besides his additional illustrations, not a single valuable explication of any obscure passage in these plays has ever appeared, which he has not inserted in his edition. He rejects Titus Andronicus, as well as the three plays formerly mentioned, as not being the authentic productions of Shakespeare. To the whole he has added an appendix, and a copious glossary.—Of this work a less expensive edition has been published in 7 vols 12mo, in which the general introductory observations prefixed to the different plays are preserved, and the numerous notes abridged.
This judicious commentator has certainly done more for the elucidation and correction of Shakespeare than all who came before him, and has followed with indefatigable patience the only road which a commentator of Shakespeare ought to observe.
Within 30 years after our poet's death, Dryden says that he became "a little obsolete;" and in the beginning of the 18th century Lord Shaftesbury complains of his rude unpolished style, and his antiquated phrase and wit. These complaints were owing to the great revolution which the English language has undergone, and to the want of an enlightened commentator. These complaints are now removed, for an enlightened commentator has been found in Mr Malone.
We have only farther to add, that in the year 1790 a copious index to the remarkable passages and words in the plays of Shakespeare was published by the Reverend Mr Aykough; a gentleman to whom the literary world is much indebted for several very valuable keys of knowledge. In fine, the admirers of Shakespeare are now, by the labours of several eminent men, furnished with every help that can enable them to understand the sense and to taste the beauties of this illustrious poet.