Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Part 29

William Warburton.

96. _the excellent Discourse which follows_, _i.e._ Pope's Preface, which was reprinted by Warburton along with Rowe's Account of Shakespeare.

101. _Essays, Remarks, Observations_, etc. Warburton apparently refers to the following works:

_Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, written by Mr.

William Shakespeare._ London, 1736. Perhaps by Sir Thomas Hanmer.

_An Essay towards fixing the true Standards of Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule. To which is added an a.n.a.lysis of the Characters of an Humourist, Sir John Falstaff, Sir Roger de Coverley, and Don Quixote._ London, 1744. By Corbyn Morris, who signs the Dedication.

_Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth: with Remarks on Sir Thomas Hanmer's Edition of Shakespeare. To which is affixed Proposals for a new Edition of Skakespear, with a Specimen._ London, 1745. By Samuel Johnson, though anonymous.

_Critical Observations on Shakespeare._ By John Upton, Prebendary of Rochester. London, 1746. Second edition, with a preface replying to Warburton, 1748.

_An Essay upon English Tragedy. With Remarks upon the Abbe de Blanc's Observations on the English Stage._ By William Guthrie, Esq. [1747.]

The last of these may not have appeared, however, till after Warburton's edition.

Johnson is said by Boswell to have ever entertained a grateful remembrance of this allusion to him "at a time when praise was of value." But though the criticism is merited, is it too sinister a suggestion that it was prompted partly by the reference in Johnson's pamphlet to "the learned Mr.

Warburton"? When Johnson's edition appeared in 1765, Warburton expressed a very different opinion (see Nichols, _Anecdotes_, v., p. 595).

101-105. _whole Compa.s.s of Criticism._ Cf. Theobald's account of the "Science of Criticism," pp. 81, etc., which Warburton appears to have suggested.

101. _Canons of literal Criticism._ This phrase suggested the t.i.tle of the ablest and most damaging attack on Warburton's edition,-_The Canons of Criticism, and Glossary, being a Supplement to Mr. Warburton's Edition of Shakespear._ The author was Thomas Edwards (1699-1757), a "gentleman of Lincoln's Inn," who accordingly figures in the notes to the _Dunciad_, iv.

568. When the book first appeared in 1748 it was called _A Supplement_, etc.... _Being the Canons of Criticism_. It reached a seventh edition in 1765.

103. _Rymer_, _Short View of Tragedy_ (1693), pp. 95, 6.

105. _as Mr. Pope hath observed._ Preface, p. 47.

_Dacier_, _Bossu._ See notes, pp. 18 and 86.

_Rene Rapin_ (1621-1687). His fame as a critic rests on his _Reflexions sur la Poetique d' Aristote et sur les Ouvrages des Poetes anciens et modernes_ (1674), which was Englished by Rymer immediately on its publication. His treatise _De Carmine Pastorali_, of which a translation is included in Creech's _Idylliums of Theocritus_ (1684), was used by Pope for the preface to his _Pastorals_. An edition of _The Whole Critical Works of Monsieur Rapin ... newly translated into English by several Hands_, 2 vols., appeared in 1706; it is not, however, complete.

_John Oldmixon_ (1673-1742), who, like Dennis and Gildon, has a place in the _Dunciad_, was the author of _An Essay on Criticism, as it regards Design, Thought, and Expression in Prose and Verse_ (1728) and _The Arts of Logick and Rhetorick, ill.u.s.trated by examples taken out of the best authors_ (1728). The latter is based on the _Maniere de bien penser_ of Bouhours.

_A certain celebrated Paper_,-_The Spectator_.

_semper acerb.u.m_, etc. Virgil, _Aeneid_, v. 49.

106. _Note_, "See his Letters to me." These letters are not extant.

108. _Saint Chrysostom ... Aristophanes._ This had been a commonplace in the discussions at the end of the seventeenth century, in England and France, on the morality of the drama.

_Ludolf Kuster_ (1670-1716) appears also in the _Dunciad_, iv., l. 237.

His edition of Suidas was published, through Bentley's influence, by the University of Cambridge in 1705. He also edited Aristophanes (1710), and wrote _De vero usu Verborum Mediorum apud Graecos_. Cf. Farmer's _Essay_, p. 176.

_who thrust himself into the employment._ Hanmer's letters to the University of Oxford do not bear out Warburton's statement.

109. Gilles Menage (1613-1692). _Les Poesies de M. de Malherbe avec les Observations de M. Menage_ appeared in 1666.

Selden's "Ill.u.s.trations" or notes appeared with the first part of _Polyolbion_ in 1612. This allusion was suggested by a pa.s.sage in a letter from Pope of 27th November, 1742: "I have a particular reason to make you interest yourself in me and my writings. It will cause both them and me to make the better figure to posterity. A very mediocre poet, one Drayton, is yet taken some notice of, because Selden writ a few notes on one of his poems" (ed. Elwin and Courthope, ix., p. 225).

110. _Verborum proprietas_, etc. Quintilian, _Inst.i.tut. Orat._, Prooem.

16.

Warburton alludes to the edition of Beaumont and Fletcher "by the late Mr.

Theobald, Mr. Seward of Eyam in Derbys.h.i.+re, and Mr. Sympson of Gainsborough," which appeared in ten volumes in 1750. The long and interesting preface is by Seward. Warburton's reference would not have been so favourable could he have known Seward's opinion of his Shakespeare. See the letter printed in the _Correspondence of Hanmer_, ed.

Bunbury, pp. 352, etc.

The edition of _Paradise Lost_ is that by Thomas Newton (1704-1782), afterwards Bishop of Bristol. It appeared in 1749, and a second volume containing the other poems was added in 1752. In the preface Newton gratefully acknowledges this recommendation, and alludes with pride to the a.s.sistance he had received from Warburton, who had proved himself to be "the best editor of Shakespeare."

_Some dull northern Chronicles_, etc. Cf. the _Dunciad_, iii. 185-194.

111. _a certain satyric Poet._ The reference is to Zachary Grey's edition of _Hudibras_ (1744). Yet Warburton had contributed to it. In the preface "the Rev. and learned Mr. William Warburton" is thanked for his "curious and critical observations."

Grey's "coadjutor" was "the reverend Mr. Smith of Harleston in Norfolk,"

as Grey explains in the preface to the _Notes on Shakespeare_. In his preface to _Hudibras_, Grey had given Smith no prominence in his long list of helpers. Smith had also a.s.sisted Hanmer.

In 1754 Grey brought out his _Critical, Historical, and Explanatory Notes on Shakespeare_, and in 1755 retaliated on Warburton in his _Remarks upon a late edition of Shakespear ... to which is prefixed a defence of the late Sir Thomas Hanmer_. Grey appears to be the author also of _A word or two of advice to William Warburton, a dealer in many words_, 1746.

_our great Philosopher_, Sir Isaac Newton. His remark is recorded by William Whiston in the _Historical Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Samuel Clarke_ (1730), p. 143: "To observe such laymen as _Grotius_, and _Newton_, and _Lock_, laying out their n.o.blest Talents in sacred Studies; while such Clergymen as Dr. _Bentley_ and Bishop _Hare_, to name no others at present, have been, in the Words of Sir _Isaac Newton_, fighting with one another _about a Playback_ [_Terence_]: This is a Reproach upon them, their holy Religion, and holy Function plainly intolerable." Warburton's defence of himself in the previous pages must have been inspired partly by the "fanatical turn" of this "wild writer." Whiston would hardly excuse Clarke for editing Homer till he "perceived that the pains he had taken about Homer were when he was much younger, and the notes rather transcrib'd than made new"; and Warburton is careful to state that his Shakespearian studies were amongst his "younger amus.e.m.e.nts." _Francis Hare_ (1671-1740), successively Dean of Worcester, Dean of St. Paul's, Bishop of St. Asaph, and Bishop of Chichester. For his quarrel with Bentley, see Monk's _Life of Bentley_, ii., pp. 217, etc. Hare is referred to favourably in the _Dunciad_ (iii. 204), and was a friend of Warburton.

_Words are the money_, etc. Hobbes, _Leviathan_, Part I., ch. iv.: "For words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools."

Samuel Johnson.

113. _the poems of Homer._ Cf. Johnson's remark recorded in the _Diary of the Right Hon. William Windham_, August, 1784 (ed. 1866, p. 17): "The source of everything in or out of nature that can serve the purpose of poetry to be found in Homer."

114. _his century._ Cf. Horace, _Epistles_, ii. 1. 39, and Pope, _Epistle to Augustus_, 55, 56.

_Nothing can please many_, etc. This had been the theme of the 59th number of the _Idler_.

115. _Hierocles._ See the _Asteia_ attributed to Hierocles, No. 9 (_Hieroclis Commentarius in Aurea Carmina_, ed. Needham, 1709, p. 462).

116. _Pope._ Preface, p. 48.

117. _Dennis._ See pp. 26, etc. In replying to Voltaire, Johnson has in view, throughout the whole preface, the essay _Du Theatre anglais, par Jerome Carre_, 1761 (_Oeuvres_, 1785, vol. 61). He apparently ignores the earlier _Discours sur la tragedie a Milord Bolingbroke_, 1730, and _Lettres Philosophiques_ (dix-huitieme lettre, "Sur la tragedie"), 1734.

Voltaire replied thus to Johnson in the pa.s.sage "Du Theatre anglais" in the _Dictionnaire philosophique_: "J'ai jete les yeux sur une edition de Shakespeare, donnee par le sieur Samuel Johnson. J'y ai vu qu'on y traite de _pet.i.ts esprits_ les etrangers qui sont etonnes que, dans les pieces de ce grand Shakespeare, 'un senateur romain fa.s.se le bouffon, et qu'un roi paraisse sur le theatre en ivrogne.' Je ne veux point soupconner le sieur Johnson d'etre un mauvais plaisant, et d'aimer trop le vin; mais je trouve un peu extraordinaire qu'il compte la bouffonnerie et l'ivrognerie parmi les beautes du theatre tragique; la raison qu'il en donne n'est pas moins singuliere. 'Le poete, dit il, dedaigne ces distinctions accidentelles de conditions et de pays, comme un peintre qui, content d'avoir peint la figure, neglige la draperie.' La comparaison serait plus juste s'il parlait d'un peintre qui, dans un sujet n.o.ble, introduirait des grotesques ridicules, peindrait dans la bataille d'Arbelles Alexandre-le-Grand monte sur un ane, et la femme de Darius buvant avec des goujats dans un cabaret," etc. (1785, vol. 48, p. 205). On the question of Voltaire's att.i.tude to Shakespeare, see Monsieur Jusserand's _Shakespeare en France_, 1898, and Mr. Lounsbury's _Shakespeare and Voltaire_, 1902.