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Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books written by Charles W. Eliot

C >> Charles W. Eliot >> Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books




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
accumulated 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 passages 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 pass 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.

Of his notes I have generally retained those which he retained himself
in his second edition, except when they were confuted by subsequent
annotators, or were too minute to merit preservation. I have sometimes
adopted his restoration of a comma, without inserting the panegyrick
in which he celebrated himself for his atchievement. The exuberant
excrescence of his diction I have often lopped, his triumphant
exultations over _Pope_ and _Rowe_ I have sometimes suppressed, and
his contemptible ostentation I have frequently concealed; but I have
in some places shewn him, as he would have shewn himself, for the
reader's diversion, that the inflated emptiness of some notes may
justify or excuse the contraction of the rest.

_Theobald_, thus weak and ignorant, thus mean and faithless, thus
petulant and ostentatious, by the good luck of having _Pope_ for his
enemy, has escaped, and escaped alone, with reputation, from this
undertaking. So willingly does the world support those who solicite
favour, against those who command reverence; and so easily is he
praised, whom no man can envy.

Our authour fell then into the hands of Sir _Thomas Hanmer,_ the
_Oxford_ editor, a man, in my opinion, eminently qualified by nature
for such studies. He had, what is the first requisite to emendatory
criticism, that intuition by which the poet's intention is immediately
discovered, and that dexterity of intellect which despatches its work
by the easiest means. He had undoubtedly read much; his acquaintance
with customs, opinions, and traditions, seems to have been large; and
he is often learned without shew. He seldom passes what he does not
understand, without an attempt to find or to make a meaning, and
sometimes hastily makes what a little more attention would have found.
He is solicitous to reduce to grammar, what he could not be sure that
his authour intended to be grammatical. _Shakespeare_ regarded more
the series of ideas, than of words; and his language, not being
designed for the reader's desk, was all that he desired it to be, if
it conveyed his meaning to the audience.

_Hanmer's_ care of the metre has been too violently censured. He found
the measures reformed in so many passages, by the silent labours
of some editors, with the silent acquiescence of the rest, that he
thought himself allowed to extend a little further the license, which
had already been carried so far without reprehension; and of his
corrections in general, it must be confessed, that they are often
just, and made commonly with the least possible violation of the text.

But, by inserting his emendations, whether invented or borrowed, into
the page, without any notice of varying copies, he has appropriated
the labour of his predecessors, and made his own edition of little
authority. His confidence indeed, both in himself and others, was
too great; he supposes all to be right that was done by _Pope_ and
_Theobald_; he seems not to suspect a critick of fallibility, and it
was but reasonable that he should claim what he so liberally granted.

As he never writes without careful enquiry and diligent consideration,
I have received all his notes, and believe that every reader will wish
for more.

Of the last editor it is more difficult to speak. Respect is due to
high place, tenderness to living reputation, and veneration to genius
and learning; but he cannot be justly offended at that liberty
of which he has himself so frequently given an example, nor very
solicitous what is thought of notes, which he ought never to have
considered as part of his serious employments, and which, I suppose,
since the ardour of composition is remitted, he no longer numbers
among his happy effusions.

The original and predominant errour of his commentary, is acquiescence
in his first thoughts; that precipitation which is produced by
consciousness of quick discernment; and that confidence which presumes
to do, by surveying the surface, what labour only can perform,
by penetrating the bottom. His notes exhibit sometimes perverse
interpretations, and sometimes improbable conjectures; he at one
time gives the authour 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.

Of his notes, I have commonly rejected those, against which the
general voice of the publick has exclaimed, or which their own
incongruity immediately condemns, and which, I suppose, the authour
himself would desire to be forgotten. Of the rest, to part I have
given the highest approbation, by inserting the offered reading in
the text; part I have left to the judgment of the reader, as doubtful,
though specious; and part I have censured without reserve, but I am
sure without bitterness of malice, and, I hope, without wantonness of
insult.

It is no pleasure to me, in revising my volumes, to observe how much
paper is wasted in confutation. Whoever considers the revolutions of
learning, and the various questions of greater or less importance,
upon which wit and reason have exercised their powers, must lament the
unsuccessfulness of enquiry, and the slow advances of truth, when he
reflects, that great part of the labour of every writer is only the
destruction of those that went before him. The first care of the
builder of a new system, is to demolish the fabricks which are
standing. The chief desire of him that comments an authour, is to
shew how much other commentators have corrupted and obscured him.
The opinions prevalent in one age, as truths above the reach of
controversy, are confuted and rejected in another, and rise again
to reception in remoter times. Thus the human mind is kept in motion
without progress. Thus sometimes truth and criour, and sometimes
contrarieties of errour, take each other's place by reciprocal
invasion. The tide of seeming knowledge which is poured over one
generation, retires and leaves another naked and barren; the sudden
meteors of intelligence which for a while appear to shoot their beams
into the regions of obscurity, on a sudden withdraw their lustre, and
leave mortals again to grope their way.

These elevations and depressions of renown, and the contradictions to
which all improvers of knowledge must for ever be exposed, since they
are not escaped by the highest and brightest of mankind, may surely
be endured with patience by criticks and annotators, who can rank
themselves but as the satellites of their authours. How canst thou beg
for life, says _Achilles_ to his captive, when thou knowest that
thou art now to suffer only what must another day be suffered by
_Achilles?_

Dr. _Warburton_ had a name sufficient to confer celebrity on those who
could exalt themselves into antagonists, and his notes have raised a
clamour too loud to be distinct. His chief assailants are the authours
of _the Canons of criticism_ and of the _Review of_ Shakespeare's
_text_; of whom one ridicules his errours with airy petulance,
suitable enough to the levity of the controversy; the other attacks
them with gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an
assassin or incendiary. The one stings like a fly, sucks a little
blood, takes a gay flutter, and returns for more; the other bites like
a viper, and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind
him. When I think on one, with his confederates, I remember the danger
of _Coriolanus,_ who was afraid that _girls with spits, and boys with
stones, should slay him in puny battle_; when the other crosses my
imagination, I remember the prodigy in _Macbeth_,

_An eagle tow'ring in his pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd._

Let me however do them justice. One is a wit, and one a scholar. They
have both shown acuteness sufficient in the discovery of faults, and
have both advanced some probable interpretations of obscure passages;
but when they aspire to conjecture and emendation, it appears how
falsely we all estimate our own abilities, and the little which they
have been able to perform might have taught them more candour to the
endeavours of others.

Before Dr. _Warburton's_ edition, _Critical observations on_
Shakespeare had been published by Mr. _Upton_, a man skilled in
languages, and acquainted with books, but who seems to have had no
great vigour of genius or nicety of taste. Many of his explanations
are curious and useful, but he likewise, though he professed to oppose
the licentious confidence of editors, and adhere to the old copies,
is unable to restrain the rage of emendation, though his ardour is ill
seconded by his skill. Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded
by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist, and the laborious
collator at some unlucky moment frolicks in conjecture.

_Critical, historical and explanatory notes_ have been likewise
published upon _Shakespeare_ by Dr. _Grey_, whose diligent perusal
of the old _English_ writers has enabled him to make some useful
observations. What he undertook he has well enough performed, but
as he neither attempts judicial nor emendatory criticism, he employs
rather his memory than his sagacity. It were to be wished that all
would endeavour to imitate his modesty who have not been able to
surpass his knowledge.

I can say with great sincerity of all my predecessors, what I hope
will hereafter be said of me, that not one has left _Shakespeare_
without improvement, nor is there one to whom I have not been indebted
for assistance and information. Whatever I have taken from them it was
my intention to refer to its original authour, and it is certain, that
what I have not given to another, I believed when I wrote it to be my
own. In some perhaps I have been anticipated; but if I am ever found
to encroach upon the remarks of any other commentator, I am willing
that the honour, be it more or less, should be transferred to the
first claimant, for his right, and his alone, stands above dispute;
the second can prove his pretensions only to himself, nor can
himself always distinguish invention, with sufficient certainty, from
recollection.

They have all been treated by me with candour, which they have not
been careful of observing to one another. It is not easy to discover
from what cause the acrimony of a scholiast can naturally proceed.
The subjects to be discussed by him are of very email importance; they
involve neither property nor liberty; nor favour the interest of
sect or party. The various readings of copies, and different
interpretations of a passage, seem to be questions that might exercise
the wit, without engaging the passions. But, whether it be, that
_small things make mean men proud_, and vanity catches small
occasions; or that all contrariety of opinion, even in those that can
defend it no longer, makes proud men angry; there is often found in
commentaries a spontaneous strain of invective and contempt, more
eager and venomous than is vented by the most furious controvertist in
politicks against those whom he is hired to defame.

Perhaps the lightness of the matter may conduce to the vehemence
of the agency; when the truth to be investigated is so near to
inexistence, as to escape attention, its bulk is to be enlarged by
rage and exclamation: That to which all would be indifferent in its
original state, may attract notice when the fate of a name is appended
to it. A commentator has indeed great temptations to supply by
turbulence what he wants of dignity, to beat his little gold to a
spacious surface, to work that to foam which no art or diligence can
exalt to spirit.

The notes which I have borrowed or written are either illustrative,
by which difficulties are explained; or judicial by which faults
and beauties are remarked; or emendatory, by which depravations are
corrected.

The explanations transcribed from others, if I do not subjoin any
other interpretation, I suppose commonly to be right, at least I
intend by acquiescence to confess, that I have nothing better to
propose.

After the labours of all the editors, I found many passages which
appeared to me likely to obstruct the greater number of readers, and
thought it my duty to facilitate their passage. It is impossible
for an expositor not to write too little for some, and too much for
others. He can only judge what is necessary by his own experience;
and how long soever he may deliberate, will at last explain many lines
which the learned will think impossible to be mistaken, and omit many
for which the ignorant will want his help. These are censures merely
relative, and must be quietly endured. I have endeavoured to be
neither superfluously copious, nor scrupulously reserved, and hope
that I have made my authour's meaning accessible to many who before
were frighted from perusing him, and contributed something to the
publick, by diffusing innocent and rational pleasure.

The compleat explanation of an authour not systematick and
consequential, but desultory and vagrant, abounding in casual
allusions and light hints, is not to be expected from any single
scholiast. All personal reflections, when names are suppressed, must
be in a few years irrecoverably obliterated; and customs, too minute
to attract the notice of law, such as modes of dress, formalities of
conversation, rules of visits, disposition of furniture, and practices
of ceremony, which naturally find places in familiar dialogue, are
so fugitive and unsubstantial, that they are not easily retained or
recovered. What can be known, will be collected by chance, from the
recesses of obscure and obsolete papers, perused commonly with some
other view. Of this knowledge every man has some, and none has much;
but when an authour has engaged the publick attention, those who can
add any thing to his illustration, communicate their discoveries, and
time produces what had eluded diligence.

To time I have been obliged to resign many passages, which, though I
did not understand them, will perhaps hereafter be explained, having,
I hope, illustrated some, which others have neglected or mistaken,
sometimes by short remarks, or marginal directions, such as every
editor has added at his will, and often by comments more laborious
than the matter will seem to deserve; but that which is most difficult
is not always most important, and to an editor nothing is a trifle by
which his authour is obscured.