Books: Preface to Shakespeare
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Samuel Johnson >> Preface to Shakespeare
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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 shewn 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 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 small 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 mode 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.
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; but
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 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 late 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 only read it 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 practise, 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 authour'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 emenations, how soon the same fate might happen
to my own, and how many of the readings which I have corrected may
be 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 fail 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 conjecturae nostrae, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam
in meliores cofices 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 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.
SELECTED NOTES FROM SOME OF THE PLAYS
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
There is perhaps not one of Shakespeare's plays more darkened than
this by the peculiarities of its Authour, and the unskilfulness of
its Editors, by distortions of phrase, or negligence of transcription.
ACT I. SCENE i. (I. i. 7-9.)
Then no more remains:
But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,
And let them work.
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