have called our attention to their own unadorned collections, if his elegance had not given popularity to the ancient ballad and romance; and even they themselves might never have turned their attention to the subject, had they not been allured by the pleasing garb in which it had been arrayed by that fascinating writer. To Warton still greater injustice has been done. In his History of Poetry he had no model to follow, no predecessor to guide him. Instead of invidiously remarking that his dates are sometimes inaccurate, or his arrangement desultory, we should remember that he had a wilderness to bring into cultivation, and should speak with gratitude of one who has not only opened a new path to us, but has strewed it with flowers. Had Ritson, his most bitter antagonist, undertaken such a work; if we may judge from his Bibliographia Poetica, written under circumstances infinitely more favourable than those in which Warton was placed, his errors would have been, at least, equally numerous; while that, which is now as entertaining as a fairy tale, would have been rendered as dull as a parish register. The admirable Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare, by Dr. Farmer, gave an additional stimulus to studies of this nature, and explained much more clearly, than had ever been done before, the course which those who wished to illustrate our great poet ought to pursue; and the library of which he should seek to be possessed, was in some measure pointed out by the laborious Capell. Among those who embarked in this new pursuit, with the greatest ardour, and with talents proportioned to his zeal, was Mr. Steevens. Whatever was wanting in his first endeavours to elucidate Shakspeare, his continued and well-directed researches promised to supply, and a hope might reasonably have been entertained that those immortal works which had suffered every injury that could have been inflicted upon them by critical

temerity, would be restored by him to their pristine purity, as far as the unavoidable ravages of time would permit. But a new critick made his appearance; and Mr. Malone, with an industry which no labour was sufficient to check, assisted by a remarkable share of natural acumen, proceeded to tread, with unexampled success, in the road which his immediate predecessor had so ably set before him. From this moment the whole system of Mr. Steevens was changed. That faithful adherence to the old copies, which he had represented as the principal recommendation of his former labours, was at once laid aside; and those unauthorised sophistications of the text, which in his first Advertisement he informed us he had left to some more daring commentator, were, without scruple, introduced into his new edition in 1793, and still more unsparingly adopted in that which was posthumously published by Mr. Reed. He no longer submitted to the laborious process of explaining the obselete phraseology of Shakspeare, by a comparison with the writers of his own age, but cut the knot in a summary manner by discarding every mode of expression which presented any difficulty, as the corruption of an ignorant editor, or a blunder of the press; while, at the same time, the poet's versification was clipped or lengthened as caprice might suggest, in order to make it perfectly consonant to our modern notions of metrical harmony. To show that all this was altogether unjustifiable, and that the language and modulation of Shakspeare were such as would have been considered as unexceptionable in the age of Elizabeth, though deviating in many instances from the rules by which we are directed in the reign of George the Third or Fourth, is the object of the following discussion.

I. OF SHAKSPEARE'S PHRASEOLOGY.

In examining the language of an ancient writer, many considerations ought to be taken into our view. Words which were then generally used, may since have been dismissed from the language altogether, or have dropped out of common speech, and are only now to be met with in some provincial dialect. Others may still remain, but have gradually acquired a totally different signification from that which they formerly bore: while others again, such as neuter verbs converted into active, substantives into adjectives, have had their meaning so modified, that the sense which they convey now, may vary considerably from that which was affixed to them at a more early period; but the largest class of discrepancies between the style of a writer of the present day, and the productions which appeared two centuries ago, will fall under the head of grammatical construction.

The first of these divisions of the subject presents no great difficulty. The obsolete words in Shakspeare may be regarded as comparatively few, when we advert to the changes which the language was undergoing, even at the time when he wrote, the fluctuations to which it had been subject for a century before, and from which it will probably never be altogether free, as long as "englyshe men, ben borne vnder the domynacyon of the mone." The difficulties which beset a writer, who endeavoured, in the reign of Henry VII., to adopt his style to the fleeting fashion of the day, are detailed with ludicrous simplicity by Caxton, in the Preface to his Translation of Virgil.

"And whan I had aduysed me in this sayd booke. I delybered and concluded to translate it in to englyshe. And forthwyth toke a penne and ynke and

wrote a leef or tweyne, whyche I ouersawe agayn to corecte it, And whan I sawe the fayr & straunge termes therein, I doubted that it sholde not please some gentylmen whiche late blamed me sayeng that in my translacyons I had ouer curyos termes whiche coude not be vnderstande of comyn peple, and desired me to vse olde and homely termes in my translacyons. and fayn wolde I satysfye euery man, and so to doo toke an olde boke and redde therein, and certaynly the englyshe was so rude and brood that I coude not wele vnderstande it. And also my lorde Abbot of Westmynster ded do shewe to me late certayn euydences wryton in olde englyshe for to reduce it in to our englyshe now vsid, And certaynly it was wryton in suche wyse that it was more lyke to dutche than englyshe. I coude not reduce ne brynge it to be vnderstonden, And certaynly our langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that whiche was vsed and spoken whan I was borne, For we englyshe men, ben borne vnder the domynacyon of the mone. whiche is neuer stedfaste, but euer wauerynge, wexynge one season, and waneth & dyscreaseth another season, And that comyn englyshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from another. In so moche that in my dayes happened that certayn marchants were in a ship in Tamyse for to haue sayled ouer the see into Zelande, and for lacke of wynde thei taryed atte forlond. and wente to lande for to refreshe them And one of theym named Sheffelde a mercer cam in to an hows and axed for mete. and specyally he axyd after eggys And the goode wyf answerde. that she coude speke no frenshe. And the merchant was angry. for he also coude speke no frenshe. but wolde haue hadde egges, and she vnderstode hym not, And thenne at laste another sayd that he wolde haue eyren, then the good wyf sayd that she vnderstod hym wel, Loo what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte. egges or eyren, certaynly it is harde to playse every man, by cause of dyuersite & change

of langage. For in these dayes euery man that is in ony reputacyon in his contre. wyll vtter his comynycacyon and maters in suche maners & termes, that fewe men shall vnderstonde theym, And som honest and grete clerkes have ben wyth me and desired me to wryte the moste curyous termes that I coude fynde, And thus bytwene playn rude, & curyous I stande abashed. but in my Judgemente, the comyn termes that be dayli vsed ben lyghter to be vnderstonde than the olde and ancyent englyshe," &c.

The influx of classical literature into this country, during the two succeeding reigns, was attended with the introduction of fresh novelties by those who were ambitious of displaying their new acquirements; and the fondness for travelling, which prevailed during the reign of Elizabeth, occasioned the perpetual importation of exotick phraseology, from our continental neighbours. Hence our language became subject to corruptions of various kinds, against which the most sensible of our ancient criticks were accustomed to inveigh.

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Among al other lessons," says Wilson, "this should first be learned, y' we neuer affect any strange ynkehorne termes, but so speake as is commonly receiued neither sekyng to be ouer fine, nor yet liuyng ouer carelesse, vsyng our speache as most men do, & ordryng our wittes, as the fewest haue doen. Some seke so farre for outladishe Englishe, that thei forget altogether their mothers lāguage. And I dare swere this, if some of their mothers were aliue, thei were not able to tell, what thei say, & yet these fine Englishe clerkes, wil saie thei speake in their mother tongue, if a mā should charge the for couterfeityng the kynges English. Some farre iorneid ientlemē at their returne home, like as thei loue to go in forrein apparell, so thei wil pouder their talke wt ouersea laguage. He that cometh lately out of France, wil talke Freche English, & neuer blushe at the matter. Another