Stockdale's Edition of Shakspeare; including, in one volume, the whole of his Dramatic Works; with explanatory notes compiled from various commentators. Embellished with a striking likeness of the author

Preface

. ANEW edition of Shakspeare, and an edition of so sino-ular a form as the present, in which all his plays are compre hended in one volume, will, perhaps, appear surprising to many readers-, but, upon a little reflection, their surprise will, the editor doubts not, be converted into approbation. Much as Shakspeare has been read of late years, and largely as the admiration and study of him have been extended, there is still a numerous class of men to whom he is very imperfectly known. Many of the middling and lower ranks of the inhabit tants of this country are either not acquainted with him at all, ex cepting by name, or have only seen a few of his plays, which have accidentally fallen in their way. It is to supply the wants of these persons that the present edi tion is principally undertaken ; and it cannot fail of becoming to them a perpetual source of entertainment and instruction.

That they will derive the highest entertainment from it, no one can deny ; for it does not require any extraordinary degree of know ledge or education to enter into the general spirit of Shakspeare, The passions he describes are the passions which are felt by every human being ; and his wit and humour are not local, or confined to the customs of a particular age, but are such as will give pleasure at all times, and to men of all ranks, from the" highest to the lowest. But the instruction that may be drawn from Shakspeare is equal to the entertainment which his writings afford. He is the greatest master of human nature and of human life that, per haps, ever existed ; so that we cannot peruse his works without having our understandings considerably enlarged. Besides this, he abounds in occasional maxims and reflections, which are calcu lated to make a deep impression upon the mind.

There is scarcely any circumstance in the common occurrences of the world, on which something may not be found peculiarlv applicable in Shakspeare j and, at the same time, better expressed than in any other author. To promote, therefore, the knowledge of them, }S to contribute to general improvement, A 2 No;-

PREFACE.

Nor is the utility of the present publication confined to persons of the rank already described. It will be found serviceable even to those whose situation in life hath enabled them to purchase all the expensive editions of our great dramatist. The book now offered to the public may commodioufly be taken into a coach or a post-chaise, for amusement in a journey. Or if a company of gentlemen should happen, in conversation, to mention Shakspeare, or to dispute concerning any particular passage, a volume contain ing the whole of his plays may, with great convenience, be fetched by a servant out of a library or a closet. In short, any particular passage may at all times and with eale be recurred to. It is a com pendium, not an abridgement, of the noblest of our poets, and a library in a single volume.

The editor hath endeavoured to give all the perfection to this work which the nature of it can admit. The account of his life, which is taken from Rowe; and his last will, in reality comprehend almost every thing that is known wilh regard to the per sonal history of Shakspeare. The anxious researches of his ad mirers have scarcely been able to collect any farther information concerning him. The text, in the present edition, is given as it has been fettled by the most approved commentators. It does not consist with the limits of the design, that the notes should be large, or very numerous. They have not, however, been wholly neglected. The notes which are subjoined are such as were necelfary for the pur pose of illustrating and explaining obsolete words, unusual phrases, old customs, and obscure or distant allusions.

In short, it has been the editor's aim to omit nothing which may serve to render Shak speare intelligible to every capacity, and to every class of readers. Having this view, he cannot avoid expressing his hope, that an undertaking the utility of which is so apparent, will be encouraged by the public ; and his confidence of a favourable reception^ is increased by the consciousness that he is not doing an injury to anyone. The success of the present volume will not impede the sale of the larger editions of Shakspeare, which will still be equally sought for by those to whom the purchase of them may be conve nient. SOME SOME ACCOUNT O F T H E LIFE, &c. O F Mr. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. Written by Mr. R O W E. IT seems to be a kind of respect due to the memory of excellent men, especially of those whom their wit and learning have made famous, to deliver some account of themselves, as well as their works, to posterity.

For this reason, how fond do we see some people of discovering any little personal story of the great men os antiquity ! their families, the common accidents of their lives, and even their stripe, make, and features have been the subject of critical enquiries. How trifling soever this curiosity may seem to be, it is certainly very natural ; and we are hardly satisfied with an account of any remarkable person, till we have heard him described even to the very clothes he wears. As for what relates to men of letters, the knowledge of an author may sometimes conduce to the better understanding his book • and though the work's of Mr. Shakspeare may seem to many not to want a comment, yet I fancy som-! little account of the man himself may not be thought improper to go along with them. ■ He was the son of Mr. John Shakspeare, and was born at Stratford upon Avon, in Warwickshire, in April 1 564.

His family, as appears by the register and publick writings relating to that town, were of good figure and fasliion there, and are mentioned as gentlemen. His father, who was a considerable dealer in wool, had so large a family, ten children in all, that, though he was his eldest son, he could give him no better education than his own employment. He had bred him, it is true, for some time at a free-school, where, it is probable, he acquired what Latin he was mister of ■ but the narrowness of his circumstances, and the want of his assistance at home forced his father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further proficiency in that language. It is without controversy, that in his works we scarce find any traces of any thing that looks like an imitation of the ancients The delicacy of his taste, and the natural bent of his own great genius seciual if not superior, to some of the best of theirs), would certainly have led him to read and study them with so much pleasure, that iome of their fine images would naturally have insinuated themselves into, and been mixed with his own writings j so that his not copying at least something" from them, may be an argument of his never having read them.

Whether his ignorance of the ancients were a disadvantage to him" or no, mav admit of a dispute: for though the knowledge of them mieht have made him more correct, yet it is not improbable but that the regularity 5 A 3 and SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE, k. and deference for them, which would have attended that correctness, might have restrained some of that lire, impetuosity, and even beautiful extravagance, which we admire in Shakspeare : and 1 believe we are better pleased with thole thoughts, altogether new and uncommon, which his own imagination supplied him lo abun dantly with, than it he had given us the moll beautitul passages out of the Greek and Latin poets, and that in the most agreeable manner that it was possible tor a master of the English language to deliver them. Upon his leaving school, he seems to have given entirely into that wxy of living which his father proposed to him ; and in order to settle in the world after a family manner, he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young.

His wife was the daughter of one Hathawav, said to have been a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood os Stratford. In this kind of settlement he continued for some time, till an extravagance that he was guilty ot forced him both out of his country, and that way ot living which he had taken up ; and though it seemed at first to be a blemiili upon his good manners, and a misfortune to him, yet it afterwards happily proved the occasion of exerting one of the greatest geniuses that ever was known in dramatick poetry. He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen i nto ill company ; and amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of deer st easing engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Cherlecot, near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely ; and in order to revenge that ill usage, he made a ballad upon him.

And though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree, that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire, for some time, and shelter himself in London. It is at this time, and upon this accident, that he is said to have made his first acquaintance in the playhouse. He was received into the company then in being, at first in a very mean rank ; but his admirable wit, and the natural turn of it to the stage, soon distinguished him, if not as an extraordinary actor, yet as an excellent writer. Flis name is printed, as the custom was in those times, amongst those of the other players, before some old plays, but without any particular account of what sort of parts he used to play'; and though I have enquired, I could never meet with any further account of him this way, than that the top of his performance was' the Ghost in his own Hamlet.

I should have been much more pleased, to have learned from certain authority, which was the first play he wrote'* ; it would be without doubt a pleasure to any man, curious in things of this kind, to see and know what was the first essay of a fancy like Shakspeare's. Perhaps we are not to look for his beginnings, like those of other authors, among their least perfect writings : art had so little, and nature so large a share in what he did, that, for aught I know, the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, and had the molt fire and strength of imagination in them, were the best. I would not be thought by this to mean, that his fancy was so loose and extravagant, as to be independent on the rule and government of judgment ; but, that what he thought was commonly so great, so justly and rightly conceived in itself, that it wanted little or no correction, and was immediately approved by an impartial judgment at the first sight.

But though the order of time in which the several pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there are passages in tome few of them which seem to fix their dates. So the Chorus at the end of the fourth act of Henry the Fifth, by a compliment very handsomely turned to the earl of Essex, mews the play to have been written when that lord was general for the queen in Ireland : and his elogy upon queen Elizabeth, and her successor king James, in the latter end of his Henry the Eighth, is a proof of that play's being written after the accession of the latter of those two princes to the crown of England. Whatever the particular times of his writing were, the people of his age, who began to grow wonderfully fond of diversions of this kind, could not but be highly pleased * The highest date of any I can vet find, is Romeo and Juliet in i597,when the author was 31 yean old ; and Richard the Second, and Third, in the next year, viz. the 34th of his age. to OF Mr.WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. to see a. genius arise from amongst them os so pleasurable, so rich a vein, and so plentifully capable ot furnishing their favourite entertainments.

Besides the advantages of his wit, he was in himself a good-natured man, of great sweetness in his manners, and a most agreeable companion ; so that it is no wonder, if, with so many good qualities, he made himself acquainted with the best conversations of those times. Queen Elizabeth had several of his plays acted before her, and without doubt gave him many gracious marks of her favour ; it is that maiden princess plainly, whom he intends by a fair vestal, throned by the weft, Midsummer-Night's Dream. And that whole passage is a compliment very properly brought in, and very handsomely applied to her. She was so well pleased with that admirable character of Falstaff, in The T-ivo Parts of Henry the Fourth, that slie commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to sliew him in love. This is said to be the occasion of his writing The Merry Wives of Windsor.

How well flic was obeyed, the play itself is an admirable proof. Upon this occasion it may not be improper to observe, that this part of Falstaff is said to have been written orginally under the name of * Old. cast le .- some of that family being then remaining, the queen was pleased to command him to alter it ; upon which he made use of Falstaff. The present offence was indeed avoided ; but I do not know whether the author may not have been somewhat to blame in his second choice, since it is certain that Sir John Falstaff, who was a knight of the garter, and a lieutenant-general, was a name of distinguislied merit in the wars in France in Henry the Fifth's and Henry the Sixth's times. What grace soever the queen conferred upon him, it was not to her only he owed the fortune which the reputation of his wit made.

He had the honour to meet with many great and uncommon marks of favour and friendsliip from the earl of Southampton, famous in the histories ot that time for his friendsliip to the unfortunate earl of Essex. It was to that noble lord that he dedicated his poem of Fmus and Adonis. There is one instance so singular in the magnificence of this patron ot Shaktpeare's, that if I had not been assured that the story was handed down by Sir William D'Avenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his affairs, I sliould not have ventured to have inserted, that my lord Southampton at one time gave him a thouland pounds, to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to. A bounty very great, and very rare at any time, and almost equal to that profuse generosity the present age has slievvn to French dancers and Italian lingers.

What particular habitude or friendsliips he contracted with private men, I have not been able to learn, more than that every one, who had a true taste of merit, and could distinguish men, had generally a just value and esteem for him. His exceeding candour and good-nature must certainly have inclined all the gentler part of the world to love him, as the power of his wit oblige'd the men of the most delicate knowledge and polite learning to admire him. His acquaintance with Ben Jonion began with a remarkable piece of humanity and good-nature : Mr. Jonion, who was at that time altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players, in order to have it acted ; and the persons into whose hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured answer, that it would be of no service to their company ; when Shakspeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it, as to engage him first to read, it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to the publick.

Jonson was certainly a very good scholar, and in that had the advantage of Shakspeare ; though at the same time I believe it must be allowed, that what nature gave the lat ter, was more than a balance for what books had given the former ; and the judgment of a great man upon this occasion was, I think, very just and proper. In a eoneerfatio.1 between Sir John Suckling, Sir William D'Avenant, Endymion Por- * Sea the Epilogue to Henry the Fourth. A 4 ter SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE, &x. ter, Mr. Hales of Eton, and Beh Jonson ; Sir John Suckling, who was a professed admirer of Shakspeare, had undertaken his dctehce against Ben Jonson with some warmth ; Mr. Hah-.-, who had sat still for some time, told them, That if Mr. Shakspeare had not read the ancients, he had likcit'ife not stolen any thing from them ; and that if he would produce any one topics finely treated by any one of them, he would undertake to shew something upon the fame fitly efl at leafi as well written by Shak speare.

The latter part of his life was spent, as all men of good sense will wish theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. He had the good for tune to gather an estate equal to his occasion, and, in that, to his wish ; and is said to have spent some years before his death at his native Stratford. His pleasureable wit and good nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendsliip, of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Amongst them, it is a story almost still remembered in that country, that he had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and usury : it happened that, in a pleasant conversation amongst their common friends, Mr. Combe told Shakspeare in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to out-live him ; and since he could not know what might be said of him when he was dead, he desired it might be done immediately : upon which Shakspeare gave him these four verses : Ten in the hundred lies here engrav'd, 'Tis a hundred to ten his foul is not sav'd : If any man ask, sl7.ro lies in this tomb ?

Oh ! oh ! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe * But the sliarpncss of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely, that he ne ver forgave it. He died in the 53d year of his age -j-, and was buried on the north-side of the chancel, in the great church at Stratford, where a monument is placed in the wall. On his grave-stone underneath is, Good friend, for Jesus' fake forbear To dig the dust inclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these fiones, And curft be he that moves my bones. He had three daughters, of which two lived to be married; Judith, the elder, to one Mr. 1 homas Quiney, by whom she had three sons, who all died without children ; and Susannah, who was his favourite, to Dr. John Hall, a physician of good reputation in that country. She left une child only, a daughter, who was married first to Thomas Naih, el'q. and afterwards to Sir John Bernard of Abbington, but died likewise without issue.

This is what I could learn of any note, either relating to himself or family : the character of the man is best seen in his writings. But since Ben Jonson has made a sort of an essay towards it in his Discoveries, 1 will give it in his words : " I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakspeare, " that in writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer " hath been, Would he had blotted a thousand! which they thought a malevolent * The Rev. Francis Peck, in his Memoirs of the Life and Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton, 4(0. \ 74°> P- 2a3- nas introduced another epitaph imputed (on what authority is unknown) to Shak speare- It is on Tvtn-a-Corribe, alias Tlnrr-beard, brother to this John who is mentioned by Mr. Rowc. •-Thin in beard, and thick in purse : •'Never man beloved worse ; 41 He went to the giavc with many a curse : ■■ s lie devil and he had both one nurse." -|- Mr Malenc says, that he died on his birth-day, April 23, 1616, and had exactly completed his fifty-second year.

" speech. O F Mr. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. u speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who chose that " circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted : and to juf " tify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this " side idolatry, as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and ofyan open and free " nature, had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions ; wherein " he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stop " ped : Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own " power : would the rule of it had been so too ! Many times he fell into those things " which could not escape laughter; as when he said in the person of Cæsar, on« " speaking to him, " Cas ar, thou dost ?ne wrong.

" He replied : " Cafar did never wrong, but withjufi cause — " and such-like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his vir " tues : there was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." As for the passage which he mentions out of Shakspeare, there is somewhat like it in Julius Cafar, but without the absurdity ; nor did I ever meet with it in any edition that I have seen, as quoted by Mr. Jonson. Besides his plays in this edition, there are two or three ascribed to him by Mr. Langbain, which I have never seen, and know nothing of. He writ likewise Venus and Adonis, and Tarquin and Lucrece, in stanzets, which have been printed in a late collection of poems. As to the character given of him by Ben Jonion; there is a good deal in it : but I believe it may be as well expresled by what Horace fays of the first Romans, who wrote tra gedy upon the Greek models (or indeed translated them), in his epistle to Augustus. ——Natterdfublimis & acer, Nam spiral tragic urn satis cSs fieliciter audet, Seel turpem putat in chartis meiultque lituram.

As I have not proposed to myself to enter into a large and complete, collection upon Shakspeare's works, so I will only take the liberty, with all due submission to "the judgment of others, to observe some of those things I have been pleased with in looking him over. His plays are properly to be distinguiflied only into comedies and tragedies. Those which are called histories, and even some of his comedies, are really tragedies, with •a run or mixture of comedy amongst them. That way of tragi-comedy was the common mist.ake of that age, and is indeed become so agreeable to the Englisti taste, that though the severer criticks among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences seem to be better pleased with it than with an exact tragedy. The Merry Wves of Windsor, The Comedy of Errors, and The faming of the Shrew, are all pure comedy; the rest, however they are called, have something of both kinds.

It is not very easy to determine which way of writing he was most excellent in. There is certainly a great deal of entertainment in his comical humours ; and tho' thev did not then strike at all ranks of people, as the satire of the present age has taken the liberty to do, yet there is a pleasing and a well-distinguished variety in thole characters which he thought fit to meddle with. Falstaff is allowed by every body to be a master-piece ; the character is always well sustained, though drawn out into the length of three plays ; and even the account of his death, given by his old landlady Mrs. Quickly, in the first act of Henry the Fifth, thongh it be extremely natural, is yet as diverting as any part of his lite. If there be any fault in the draught he has made of this lewd old fellow, it is, that though he has made him a thief, lying, cowardly, vain-glorious, and in short every way vicious, yet he has given him so much wit as to make him almost too agreeable; and I do not know whether some people have not, in remembrance of the diversion he had formerly afforded SOME ACCOUNT OF THE L I F E, &c. afforded them, been sorry to see his friend Hal use him so scurvily, when he comes to the crown in the end of The Second P art of Henry the Fourth.

Amongst other ex travagancies, in The Merry Wives of Windsor he has made him a deer-stealer, that he might at the fame time remember his Warwickshire prosecutor, under the name of Justice Shallow; he has given him very near the fame coat of arms which Dug dale, in his Antiquities of that county, describes for a family there, and makes the Welsh parson descant very pleasantly upon them. That whole play is admirable ; the humours are various and well oppoled ; the main design, which is to cure Ford of his unreasonable jealousy, is extremely well conducted. In Twelfth-Night there is something singularly ridiculous and pleasant in the fantastical steward Malvolio. The parasite and the vain-glorious in Parolles, in All's Well that Ends Well, is as good as any thing of that kind ill Plautus or Terence.

Petruchio, in The Taming of the Shrew, is an uncommon piece of humour. The conversation of Benedict and Bea trice, in Much Ado about Nothing, and of Rosalind in As you Like It, have much wit and sprightliness all along. His clowns, without which character there was hardly any play writ in that time, are all very entertaining : and I believe Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, and Apemantus in Timon, will be allowed to be master-pieces of ill-nature, and satirical snarling. To these I might add that incomparable character of Shylock the Jew, in The Merchant of Venice ; but though we have seen that play received and acted as a comedy, and the part of the Jew performed by an excellent comedian, yet I cannot but think it was designed tragically by the author. There appears in it a deadly spirit of revenge, such a lavage fiercenels and tellness, and such a bloody designation of cruelty and mischief, as cannot agree either with the stile or characters of comedy.

The play itself, take it altogether, seems to me to be one of the most finislied of any of Shakspeare's. The. talc indeed in that part relating to the caskets, and the extravagant and unusual kind ot bond given by Antonio, is too much removed from the rules of probability ; but, taking the fact for granted, we must allow it to be very beautifully written. There is something in the friendsliip of Antonio to Bassanio very great, generous, and tender. The whole fourth act (supposing, as I laid, the fact to be probable) is extremely fine. But there are two pasl'ages that deserve a particular notice. The first is, what Por tia fays in praise of mercy, and the other on the power of musick. The melancholy of Jaques, in As you Like It, is as singular and odd as it is diverting. And if, what Horace fays, Difficile est proprie comniunia dicere, it will be a hard task for any one to go beyond him in the description of the several degrees and ages of man's life, though the thought be old, and common enough.

All the •world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players ; They have their exits and their entrances, Aud one ?nan in his time plays many parts, His ata's being seven ages. First the infant Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms : Aud then, the whining school-boy with his satchel, And shining mornings ace, creeping like snail I'liv.'illingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, vjith a woful ballad Made to his mistress' eye-brow. Then a soldier Full of fi range oaths, and bearded like the pans, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Ev'n in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice In fair round belly, -with good capon lin'd, With eves severe, and beard of formal cut, Full of wlj'c saws and modern instance:. ; Aud OF Mr. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.