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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




The poetical beauties or defects I have not been very diligent to
observe. Some plays have more, and some fewer judicial observations,
not in proportion to their difference of merit, but because I gave
this part of my design to chance and to caprice. The reader, I
believe, is seldom pleased to find his opinion anticipated; it is
natural to delight more in what we find or make, than in what we
receive. Judgement, like other faculties, is improved by practice, and
its advancement is hindered by submission to dictatorial decisions, as
the memory grows torpid by the use of a table book. Some initiation is
however necessary; of all skill, part is infused by precept, and part
is obtained by habit; I have therefore shewn so much as may enable the
candidate of criticism to discover the rest.

To the end of most plays, I have added short strictures, containing
a general censure of faults, or praise of excellence; in which I know
not how much I have concurred with the current opinion; tut I have
not, by any affectation of singularity, deviated from it. Nothing
is minutely and particularly examined, and therefore it is to be
supposed, that in the plays which are condemned there is much to be
praised, and in these which are praised much to be condemned.

The part of criticism in which the whole succession of editors has
laboured with the greatest diligence, which has occasioned the
most arrogant ostentation, and excited the keenest acrimony, is the
emendation of corrupted passages, to which the publick attention
having been first drawn by the violence of contention between _Pope_
and _Theobald_, has been continued by the persecution, which, with a
kind of conspiracy, has been since raised against all the publishers
of _Shakespeare_.

That many passages have passed in a state of depravation through all
the editions is indubitably certain; of these the restoration is only
to be attempted by collation of copies or sagacity of conjecture. The
collator's province is safe and easy, the conjecturer's perilous and
difficult. Yet as the greater part of the plays are extant only in one
copy, the peril must not be avoided, nor the difficulty refused.

Of the readings which this emulation of amendment has hitherto
produced, some from the labours of every publisher I have advanced
into the text; those are to be considered as in my opinion
sufficiently supported; some I have rejected without mention, as
evidently erroneous; some I have left in the notes without censure or
approbation, as resting in equipoise between objection and defence;
and some, which seemed specious but not right, I have inserted with a
subsequent animadversion.

Having classed the observations of others, I was at last to try what
I could substitute for their mistakes, and how I could supply their
omissions. I collated such copies as I could procure, and wished
for more, but have not found the collectors of these rarities very
communicative. Of the editions which chance or kindness put into
my hands I have given an enumeration, that I may not be blamed for
neglecting what I had not the power to do.

By examining the old copies, I soon found that the later publishers,
with all their boasts of diligence, suffered many passages to stand
unauthorised, and contented themselves with _Rowe's_ regulation of
the text, even where they knew it to be arbitrary, and with a
little consideration might have found it to be wrong. Some of these
alterations are only the ejection of a word for one that appeared to
him more elegant or more intelligible. These corruptions I have often
silently rectified; for the history of our language, and the true
force of our words, can only be preserved, by keeping the text of
authours free from adulteration. Others, and those very frequent,
smoothed the cadence, or regulated the measure; on these I have
not exercised the same rigour; if only a word was transposed, or a
particle Inserted or omitted, I have sometimes suffered the line
to stand; for the inconstancy of the copies is such, as that some
liberties may be easily permitted. But this practice I have not
suffered to proceed far, having restored the primitive diction
wherever it could for any reason be preferred.

The emendations, which comparison of copies supplied, I have inserted
in the text; sometimes where the improvement was slight, without
notice, and sometimes with an account of the reasons of the change.

Conjecture, though it be sometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly
nor licentiously indulged. It has been my settled principle, that the
reading of the ancient books is probably true, and therefore is not
to be disturbed for the sake of elegance, perspicuity, or mere
improvement of the sense. For though much credit is not due to the
fidelity, nor any to the judgement of the first publishers, yet they
who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read it right,
than we who read it only by imagination. But it is evident that they
have often made strange mistakes by ignorance or negligence, and that
therefore something may be properly attempted by criticism, keeping
the middle way between presumption and timidity.

Such criticism I have attempted to practice, and where any passage
appeared inextricably perplexed, have endeavoured to discover how it
may be recalled to sense, with least violence. But my first labour
is, always to turn the old text on every side, and try if there be any
interstice, through which light can find its way; nor would _Huetius_
himself condemn me, as refusing the trouble of research, for the
ambition of alteration. In this modest industry I have not been
unsuccessful. I have rescued many lines from the violations of
temerity, and secured many scenes from the inroads of correction. I
have adopted the _Roman_ sentiment, that it is more honourable to
save a citizen, than to kill an enemy, and have been more careful to
protect than to attack.

I have preserved the common distribution of the plays into acts,
though I believe it to be in almost all the plays void of authority.
Some of those which are divided in the later editions have no division
in the first folio, and some that are divided in the folio have no
division in the preceding copies. The settled mode of the theatre
requires four intervals in the play, but few, if any, of our authour's
compositions can be properly distributed in that manner. An act is so
much of the drama as passes without intervention of time or change of
place. A pause makes a new act. In every real, and therefore in every
imitative action, the intervals may be more or fewer, the restriction
of five acts being accidental and arbitrary. This _Shakespeare_ knew,
and this he practised; his plays were written, and at first printed
in one unbroken continuity, and ought now to be exhibited with
short pauses, interposed as often as the scene is changed, or any
considerable time is required to pass. This method would at once quell
a thousand absurdities.

In restoring the author's works to their integrity, I have considered
the punctuation as wholly in my power; for what could be their care of
colons and commas, who corrupted words and sentences. Whatever could
be done by adjusting points is therefore silently performed, in some
plays with much diligence, in others with less; it is hard to keep a
busy eye steadily fixed upon evanescent atoms, or a discursive mind
upon evanescent truth.

The same liberty has been taken with a few particles, or other words
of slight effect. I have sometimes inserted or omitted them without
notice. I have done that sometimes, which the other editors have
done always, and which indeed the state of the text may sufficiently
justify.

The greater part of readers, instead of blaming us for passing
trifles, will wonder that on mere trifles so much labour is expended,
with such importance of debate, and such solemnity of diction. To
these I answer with confidence, that they are judging of an art which
they do not understand; yet cannot much reproach them with their
ignorance, nor promise that they would become in general, by learning
criticism, more useful, happier or wiser.

As I practised conjecture more, I learned to trust it less; and after
I had printed a few plays, resolved to insert none of my own readings
in the text. Upon this caution I now congratulate myself, for every
day encreases my doubt of my emendations.

Since I have confined my imagination to the margin, it must not be
considered as very reprehensible, if I have suffered it to play some
freaks in its own dominion. There is no danger in conjecture, if it
be proposed as conjecture; and while the text remains uninjured, those
changes may be safely offered, which are not considered even by him
that offers them as necessary or safe.

If my readings are of little value, they have not been ostentatiously
displayed or importunately obtruded. I could have written longer
notes, for the art of writing notes is not of difficult attainment.
The work is performed, first by railing at the stupidity, negligence,
ignorance, and asinine tastelessness of the former editors, and
shewing, from all that goes before and all that follows, the
inelegance and absurdity of the old reading; then by proposing
something which to superficial readers would seem specious, but
which the editor rejects with indignation; then by producing the true
reading, with a long paraphrase, and concluding with loud acclamations
on the discovery, and a sober wish for the advancement and prosperity
of genuine criticism.

All this may be done, and perhaps done sometimes without impropriety.
But I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires
many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot
without so much labour appear to be right The justness of a happy
restoration strikes at once, and the moral precept may be well applied
to criticism, _quod dubitas ne feceris_.

To dread the shore which he sees spread with wrecks, is natural to
the sailor. I had before my eye, so many critical adventures ended in
miscarriage, that caution was forced upon me. I encountered in every
page Wit struggling with its own sophistry, and Learning confused by
the multiplicity of its views. I was forced to censure those whom I
admired, and could not but reflect, while I was dispossessing their
emendations, how soon the same fate might happen to my own, and how
many of the readings which I have corrected may be by some other
editor defended and established.

Criticks, I saw, that other's names efface,
And fix their own, with labour, in the place;
Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd,
Or disappear'd, and left the first behind,

POPE.

That a conjectural critick should often be mistaken, cannot be
wonderful, either to others or himself, if it be considered, that in
his art there is no system, no principal and axiomatical truth that
regulates subordinate positions. His chance of errour is renewed
at every attempt; an oblique view of the passage, a slight
misapprehension of a phrase, a casual inattention to the parts
connected, is sufficient to make him not only fails, but fail
ridiculously; and when he succeeds best, he produces perhaps but one
reading of many probable, and he that suggests another will always be
able to dispute his claims.

It is an unhappy state, in which danger is hid under pleasure. The
allurements of emendation are scarcely resistible. Conjecture has all
the joy and all the pride of invention, and he that has once started
a happy change, is too much delighted to consider what objections may
rise against it.

Yet conjectural criticism has been of great use in the learned world;
nor is it my intention to depreciate a study, that has exercised so
many mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age, from
the Bishop of _Aleria_ to English _Bentley_. The criticks on ancient
authours have, in the exercise of their sagacity, many assistances,
which the editor of _Shakespeare_ is condemned to want. They are
employed upon grammatical and settled languages, whose construction
contributes so much to perspicuity, that _Homer_ has fewer passages
unintelligible than _Chaucer_. The words have not only a known
regimen, but invariable quantities, which direct and confine the
choice. There are commonly more manuscripts than one; and they do not
often conspire in the same mistakes. Yet _Scaliger_ could confess
to _Salmasius_ how little satisfaction his emendations gave him.
_Illudunt nobis conjectureae nostrae, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam
in meliores codices incidimus_. And _Lipsius_ could complain, that
criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them, _Ut olim
vitiis, ita nunc remediis laboratur_. And indeed, where mere
conjecture is to be used, the emendations of _Scaliger_ and _Lipsius_,
notwithstanding their wonderful sagacity and erudition, are often
vague and disputable, like mine or _Theobald_'s.

Perhaps I may not be more censured for doing wrong, than for doing
little; for raising in the publick expectations, which at last I have
not answered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that of
knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to satisfy those who know
not what to demand, or those who demand by design what they think
impossible to be done. I have indeed disappointed no opinion more
than my own; yet I have endeavoured to perform my task with no slight
solicitude. Not a single passage in the whole work has appeared to me
corrupt, which I have not attempted to restore; or obscure, which I
have not endeavoured to illustrate. In many I have failed like others,
and from many, after all my efforts, I have retreated, and confessed
the repulse. I have not passed over, with affected superiority, what
is equally difficult to the reader and to myself, but where I could
not instruct him, have owned my ignorance. I might easily have
accumulated a mass of seeming learning upon easy scenes; but it ought
not to be imputed to negligence, that, where nothing was necessary,
nothing has been done, or that, where others have said enough, I have
said no more.

Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him, that
is yet unacquainted with the powers of _Shakespeare_, and who desires
to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play
from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his
commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at
correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged,
let it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of _Theobald_ and of
_Pope_. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity, through
integrity and corruption; let him preserve his comprehension of the
dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when the pleasures
of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness, and read the
commentators.

Particular passages are cleared by notes, but the general effect of
the work is weakened. The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the
thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary,
he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has
too diligently studied.

Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed; there
is a kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the comprehension
of any great work in its full design and its true proportions; a close
approach shews the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the whole is
discerned no longer It is not very grateful to consider how little the
succession of editors has added to this authour's power of pleasing.
He was read, admired, studied, and imitated, while he was yet
deformed with all the improprieties which ignorance and neglect could
accumulate upon him; while the reading was yet not rectified, nor
his allusions understood; yet then did _Dryden_ pronounce "that
_Shakespeare_ was the man, who, of all modern and perhaps ancient
poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul." All the images
of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously,
but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you
feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him
the greater commendation: he was naturally learned: he needed not the
spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her
there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do
him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many
times flat and insipid; his comick wit degenerating into clenches, his
serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some
great occasion is presented to him: No man can say, he ever had a fit
subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the
rest of poets,

"Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi."

It is to be lamented, that such a writer should want a commentary;
that his language should become obsolete, or his sentiments obscure.
But it is vain to carry wishes beyond the condition of human things;
that which must happen to all, has happened to _Shakespeare_, by
accident and time; and more than has been suffered by any other writer
since the use of types, has been suffered by him through his own
negligence of fame, or perhaps by that superiority of mind, which
despised its own performances, when it compared them with its powers,
and judged those works unworthy to be preserved, which the criticks
of following ages were to contend for the fame of restoring and
explaining.

Among these candidates of inferiour fame, I am now to stand the
judgment of the publick; and wish that I could confidently produce my
commentary as equal to the encouragement which I have had the honour
of receiving. Every work of this kind is by its nature deficient,
and I should feel little solicitude about the sentence, were it to be
pronounced only by the skilful and the learned.




INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPYLAeEN [A]

BY J.W. VON GOETHE. (1798)


The youth, when Nature and Art attract him, thinks that with a
vigorous effort he can soon penetrate into the innermost sanctuary,
the man, after long wanderings, finds himself still in the outer
court.

Such an observation has suggested our title. It is only on the step,
in the gateway, the entrance, the vestibule, the space between the
outside and the inner chamber, between the sacred and the common, that
we may ordinarily tarry with our friends.

If the word _Propylaea_ recalls particularly the structure through
which was reached the citadel of Athens and the temple of Minerva,
this is not inconsistent with our purpose; but the presumption of
intending to produce here a similar work of art and splendor should
not be laid to our charge. The name of the place may be understood
as symbolizing what might have happened there; one may expect
conversations and discussions such as would perhaps not be unworthy of
that place.

Are not thinkers, scholars, artists, in their best hours allured to
those regions, to dwell (at least in imagination) among a people to
whom a perfection which we desire but never attain was natural,
among whom in the course of time and life, a culture developed in a
beautiful continuity, which to us appears only in passing fragments?
What modern nation does not owe its artistic culture to the Greeks,
and, in certain branches, what nation more than the German?

So much by way of excuse for the symbolic title, if indeed an excuse
be necessary. May the title be a reminder that we are to depart as
little as possible from classic ground; may it, through its brevity
and signification, modify the demands of the friends of art whom
we hope to interest through the present work, which is to contain
observations and reflections concerning Nature and Art by a harmonious
circle of friends.

He who is called to be an artist will give careful heed to everything
around him; objects and their parts will attract his attention, and
by making practical use of such experience he will gradually train
himself to observe more sharply. He will, in his early career, apply
everything, so far as possible, to his own advantage; later he will
gladly make himself serviceable to others. Thus we also hope to
present and relate to our readers many things which we regard as
useful and agreeable, things which, under various circumstances, have
been noted by us during a number of years.

But who will not willingly agree that pure observation is more rare
than is believed? We are apt to confuse our sensations, our opinion,
our judgment, with what we experience, so that we do not remain
long in the passive attitude of the observer, but soon go on to make
reflections; and upon these no greater weight can be placed than may
be more or less justified by the nature and quality of our individual
intellects.

In this matter we are able to gain stronger confidence from our
harmony with others, and from the knowledge that we do not think and
work alone, but in common. The perplexing doubt whether our method
of thought belongs only to us--a doubt which often comes over us when
others express the direct opposite of our convictions--is softened,
even dispelled, when we find ourselves in agreement with others; only
then do we go on rejoicing with assurance in the possession of those
principles which a long experience, on our own part and on the part of
others, has gradually confirmed.

When several persons thus live united, so that they may call one
another friends, because they have a common interest in bringing about
their progressive cultivation and in advancing towards closely related
aims, then they may be certain that they will meet again in the most
varied ways, and that even the courses which seemed to separate them
from one another will nevertheless soon bring them happily together
again.

Who has not experienced what advantages are afforded in such cases by
conversation? But conversation is ephemeral; and while the results
of a mutual development are imperishable, the memory of the means by
which it was reached disappears. Letters preserve better the stages of
a progress which friends achieve together; every moment of growth is
fixed, and if the result attained affords us agreeable satisfaction,
a look backward at the process of development is instructive since it
permits its to hope for an unflagging advance in the future.

Short papers, in which are set down from time to time one's thoughts,
convictions, and wishes, in order to find entertainment in one's past
self after a lapse of time, are excellent auxiliary means for
the development of oneself and of others, none of which should be
neglected when one considers the brief period allotted to life and the
many obstacles that stand in the way of every advance.

It is self evident that we are talking here particularly of an
exchange of ideas between such friends as are striving for cultivation
in the sphere of science and art; although life in the world of
affairs and industry should not lack similar advantages.

In the arts and sciences, however, in addition to this close
association among their votaries, a relation to the public is as
favorable as it is necessary. Whatever of universal interest one
thinks or accomplishes belongs to the world, and the world brings to
maturity whatever it can utilize of the efforts of the individual. The
desire for approval which the author feels is an impulse implanted by
Nature to draw him toward something higher; he thinks he has attained
the laurel wreath, but soon becomes aware that a more laborious
training of every native talent is necessary in order to retain the
public favor; though it may be attained for a short moment through
fortune or accident also.

The relation of the author to his public is important in his early
period; even in later days he cannot dispense with it. However little
he may be fitted to teach others, he wishes to share his thoughts with
those whom he feels congenial, but who are scattered far and wide in
the world. By this means he wishes to re-establish his relation with
his old friends, to continue it with new ones, and to gain in the
younger generation still others for the remainder of his life. He
wishes to spare youth the circuitous paths upon which he himself
went astray, and while observing and utilizing the advantages of the
present, to maintain the memory of his praiseworthy earlier efforts.

With this serious view, a small society has been brought together; may
cheerfulness attend our undertakings, and time may show whither we are
bound.

The papers which we intend to present, though they are composed by
several authors, will, it is hoped, never be contradictory in the main
points, even though the methods of thought may not be the same in all.
No two persons regard the world in exactly the same way, and different
characters will often apply in different ways a principle which
they all acknowledge. Indeed, a person is not always consistent with
himself in his views and judgments: early convictions must give way to
later ones. The individual opinions that a man holds and expresses may
stand all tests or not; the main thing is that he continue on his way,
true to himself and to others!