Alexander Pope, 1688-1744.
The poet Pope was Shakespeare’s second editor. His edition in six quarto volumes was completed in 1725. The poems, edited by Dr. George Sewell, with an essay on the rise and progress of the stage, and a glossary, appeared in a seventh volume. Pope had few qualifications for the task, and the venture was a commercial failure. In his preface Pope, while he fully recognised Shakespeare’s native genius, deemed his achievement deficient in artistic quality. Pope claimed to have collated the text of the Fourth Folio with that of all preceding editions, and although his work indicates that he had access to the First Folio and some of the quartos, it is clear that his text was based on that of Rowe. His innovations are numerous, and are derived from ‘his private sense and conjecture,’ but they are often plausible and ingenious. He was the first to indicate the place of each new scene, and he improved on Rowe’s subdivision of the scenes. A second edition of Pope’s version in ten duodecimo volumes appeared in 1728 with Sewell’s name on the title-page as well as Pope’s. There were few alterations in the text, though a preliminary table supplied a list of twenty-eight quartos. Other editions followed in 1735 and 1768. The last was printed at Garrick’s suggestion at Birmingham from Baskerville’s types.