WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: THE CRITICAL HERITAGE VOLUME 6, 1774–1801 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE SERIES General Editor: B.C.Southam The Critical Heritage series collects together a large body of criticism on major figures in literature. Each volume presents the contemporary responses to a particular writer, enabling the student to follow the formation of critical attitudes to the writer’s work and its place within a literary tradition. The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the history of criticism to fragments of contemporary opinion and little published documentary material, such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included in order to demonstrate fluctuations in reputation following the writer’s death. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE VOLUME 6, 1774–1801 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE Edited by BRIAN VICKERS London and New York First Published in 1981 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. Compilation, introduction, notes and index © 1981 Brian Vickers All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data ISBN 0-203-19803-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-19806-9 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-13409-9 (Print Edition) General Editor’s Preface The reception given to a writer by his contemporaries and near- contemporaries is evidence of considerable value to the student of literature. On one side we learn a great deal about the state of criticism at large and in particular about the development of critical attitudes towards a single writer; at the same time, through private comments in letters, journals or marginalia, we gain an insight upon the tastes and literary thought of individual readers of the period. Evidence of this kind helps us to understand the writer’s historical situation, the nature of his immediate reading-public, and his response to these pressures. The separate volumes in the Critical Heritage Series present a record of this early criticism. Clearly, for many of the highly productive and lengthily reviewed nineteenth- and twentieth- century writers, there exists an enormous body of material; and in these cases the volume editors have made a selection of the most important views, significant for their intrinsic critical worth or for their representative quality—perhaps even registering incomprehension! For earlier writers, notably pre-eighteenth century, the materials are much scarcer and the historical period has been extended, sometimes far beyond the writer’s lifetime, in order to show the inception and growth of critical views which were initially slow to appear. Shakespeare is, in every sense, a special case, and Professor Vickers has presented the course of his reception and reputation extensively, over a span of three centuries, in a sequence of six volumes, each of which has documented a specific period. In each volume the documents are headed by an Introduction, discussing the material assembled and relating the early stages of the author’s reception to what we have come to identify as the critical tradition. The volumes will make available much material which would otherwise be difficult of access and it is hoped that the modern reader will be thereby helped towards an informed understanding of the ways in which literature has been read and judged. B.C.S. v FOR MORGAN DAVIES, ALBERT FREILING, AND MICHAEL WALL Contents PREFACE xi INTRODUCTION 1 NOTE ON THE TEXT 87 243 FRANCIS GENTLEMAN, commentary on Shakespeare, 1774 89 244 ALEXANDER GERARD, on Shakespeare’s genius, 1774 113 245 WILLIAM KENRICK, lectures on Shakespeare, 1774 115 246 WILLIAM RICHARDSON, on the morality of Macbeth and Hamlet, 1774 118 247 EDWARD TAYLOR, Shakespeare’s faulty tragedies, 1774 124 248 Unsigned essay, on the cowardice of Falstaff, c. 1774 133 249 ELIZABETH GRIFFITH, Shakespeare and domestic morality, 1775 136 250 WILLIAM COOKE, Shakespeare’s language, 1775 149 251 JAMES BEATTIE, Shakespearian tragedy, 1776 151 252 JOHN BERKENHOUT, Shakespeare defended from Voltaire, 1777 156 253 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, lectures on Shakespeare, 1777 160 254 MAURICE MORGANN, on Falstaff, 1777 164 255 FREDERICK PILON, on acting Hamlet, 1777 180 256 HENRY BROOKE, adaptation of Antony and Cleopatra, 1778 184 257 GEORGE STEEVENS and others, edition of Shakespeare, 1778 189 258 Unsigned article, in defence of Polonius, 1779 200 259 GEORGE STEEVENS, on the alterations of Shakespeare, 1779 204 260 WILLIAM RICHARDSON, on Richard III’s wooing, 1779 208 261 HORACE WALPOLE, Shakespeare’s natural genius, 1779–80 211 262 SAMUEL BADCOCK, Shakespeare’s originality, 1780 215 263 EDWARD CAPELL, notes on Shakespeare, 1780 218 264 HENRY MACKENZIE, on the character of Hamlet, 1780 272 vii CONTENTS 265 EDMOND MALONE and others, supplements to Shakespeare, 1780 281 266 THOMAS WARTON, Shakespeare and the golden age of English poetry, 1781 304 267 JAMES HARRIS, Shakespeare and the rules of criticism, 1781 310 268 SAMUEL JOHNSON, on Shakespeare and his critics, 1781 313 269 Unsigned essay, Hamlet defends himself, 1782 316 270 JOHN STEDMAN, letters on Shakespeare, 1782 320 271 B.WALWYN, Shakespearian comedy, 1782 324 272 HUGH BLAIR, lectures on Shakespeare, 1783 328 273 WILLIAM JACKSON, Shakespeare and Jonson, 1783 332 274 JOSEPH RITSON, Shakespeare’s editors corrected, 1783 334 275 EDMOND MALONE, additional notes on Shakespeare, 1783 348 276 WILLIAM RICHARDSON, essays on Shakespeare’s characters, 1783 351 277 THOMAS DAVIES, Shakespeare in the theatre, 1784 370 278 Unsigned article, notes on Shakespeare, 1785 385 279 ISAAC REED and others, edition of Shakespeare, 1785 388 280 WILLIAM SHAW, Shakespeare’s faults, 1785 393 281 JOHN PINKERTON, observations on Shakespeare, 1785 395 282 Unsigned essay, Shakespeare and modern tragedy, 1785 398 283 JOHN MONCK MASON, on editing Shakespeare, 1785 403 284 THOMAS WHATELY, Richard III and Macbeth compared, 1785 407 285 J.P.KEMBLE, in defence of Macbeth, 1786 430 286 MARTIN SHERLOCK, in praise of Shakespeare, 1786 435 287 HENRY MACKENZIE, on Falstaff, 1786 440 288 RICHARD CUMBERLAND, essays on Shakespeare, 1786 447 289 ANDREW BECKET, notes on Shakespeare’s text, 1787 460 290 GEORGE STEEVENS, on Richard III and Macbeth, 1787 462 291 SAMUEL FELTON, Shakespeare and the artist, 1787 466 292 RICHARD STACK, Morgann on Falstaff refuted, 1788 469 293 THOMAS ROBERTSON, on Hamlet, 1788 480 294 WILLIAM RICHARDSON, on Falstaff, 1788 490 295 Unsigned essay, on Julius Caesar, 1789 500 296 Unsigned notices, on Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, 1789 505 viii CONTENTS 297 THOMAS TWINING, Shakespeare and Greek tragedy, 1789 513 298 JAMES FENNELL, Shakespeare in the theatre, 1789 516 299 EDMOND MALONE, edition of Shakespeare, 1790 521 300 W.N., on Othello, 1791 556 301 JAMES BOSWELL, Johnson on Shakespeare, 1791 567 302 Unsigned essay, a rhapsody on Shakespeare, 1792 573 303 GEORGE STEEVENS and others, edition of Shakespeare, 1793 576 304 WALTER WHITER, Shakespeare’s mental associations, 1794 606 305 WOLSTENHOLME PARR, on Coriolanus and Othello, 1795 614 306 RICHARD HOLE, an ironical (?) defence of Iago, 1796 622 307 WILLIAM RICHARDSON, further thoughts on Hamlet, 1798 627 308 NATHAN DRAKE, Shakespeare and Elizabethan poetry, 1798 629 309 ARTHUR MURPHY, Garrick’s Shakespeare, 1801 632 A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 637 INDEX 639 ix Preface This, the last of the projected number of volumes for Shakespeare in this series, brings the story up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Those who have followed it through the six volumes will note many continuities of attitude and critical method, but also their gradual transformation, under the impact of debate and disagreement. What this volume shows especially clearly is the emergence of Romantic, and some modern, conceptions of Shakespeare directly out of the Neo-classic system, partly by extension (on the question of characterization, for instance), and partly by a re-formulation of the analytical model, in order to counter the negative criticisms of Shakespeare that the Neo-classic model had produced. In order to grant Shakespeare his true status, proclaimed on every side, it was necessary to reform the critical system, and the process can be traced here in the commentary of Capell, and in the analyses of Hamlet’s character produced by Mackenzie, Richardson, and Robertson. As we read their work of the 1780s we see that we are within a stone’s throw of Hazlitt and Coleridge. Not all aspects of Shakespeare’s reception and understanding reveal such a metamorphosis. In editing and textual criticism scholarship develops unevenly, with backward as well as forward movement. As I recorded in Vol. 2, when we turn from Pope’s edition to Theobald’s, we move from a brilliant poet but dilettante critic, tinkering with the text to make it conform to his own taste in language and morals, arbitrarily rejecting as spurious whatever did not please him, to the first modern scholar-critic, who established many of the methods by which Shakespeare’s text was corrected and properly understood. I still maintain my high estimate of Theobald, although increased acquaintance with the work of Edward Capell has given me even greater respect for his combination of intelligence, good sense, enormous range of learning, minute accuracy, scrupulousness of detail, and the ability to visualize a text in theatrical terms, a grasp of its totality which is rare in any age and was unique in his own. Yet to make such an estimate of Capell demands much time and labour. Due to the xi PREFACE unfortunate decision he made to issue the text alone in 1768, the first instalment of notes in 1774, and the remainder only after his death in 1781, Capell’s edition never existed as a unity, and his immediate rivals, Steevens and Malone, were able to abuse him, publicly ignore and privately plagiarize him, with more or less impunity.