The extensive plan for the illustration of the poet, imperfectly projected by Johnson, was finally executed through a series of editions, which gave rise to a new class of literary antiquaries.
Shortly after the first edition of Johnson, Dr. Farmer led the way to the disclosure of a new lore in our old books. Farmer had silently pursued an untired chase in this “black” forest, for he had a keen gusto for the native venison, and, alluding to his Shakespearian pursuits, exclaimed in the inspiring language of his poet—
| Age cannot wither them, nor custom stale Their infinite variety. |
His vivacity relieved the drowsiness of mere antiquarianism. This novel pursuit once opened, an eager and motley pack was hallooed up, and Shakespeare, like Actæon, was torn to pieces by a whole kennel of his own hounds, as they were typified, with equal humour and severity. But to be severe and never to be just is the penury of the most sordid criticism; and among these
Spirits black, white, and grey,
are some of the most illustrious in English literature.
The original edition of Johnson consisted only of eight volumes; had not the contriving wisdom of the printers impressed the last into twenty and one huge tomes, they might easily have been expanded into forty.
When we survey the massive variorum edition of Shakespeare, we are struck by the circumstance that nothing similar has happened to any other national author. It was not to be expected that, after the invention of the art of printing, an author could arise, whose works should be disfigured by treacherous transcribers, corrupted by interpolations, and still more by a race of men whose art was unknown to the ancients, subjecting his text to the mercy of contending commentators and conjectural critics. But a singular combination of untoward circumstances attached to this poet and his works, produced this remarkable result. The scholiasts among the ancient classics had rejoiced in some rare emendation of the text, or the rhetorical commentator had flourished in the luxuriance of the latent beauties of some favourite author. But a far wider and deeper source of inquiry was now to be attempted, historical or explanatory—comments to clear up obscure allusions; to indicate unknown prototypes; to trace the vicissitudes of words as well as things; to picture forth the customs and the manners which had faded into desuetude; and to re-open for us the records of our social and domestic life, thus at once to throw us back into that age, and to familiarize us with that language, of Shakespeare which had vanished. Shakespeare, it may be said, suddenly became the favourite object of literary inquiry. Every literary man in the nation conned over and illumined “the infinite variety” of the bard. And assuredly they enriched our vernacular literature with a collection of historical, philological, and miscellaneous information, unparalleled among any other literary people. In 1785, Isaac Reed, in one of his prefaces, informs us, that “the works of Shakespeare, during the last twenty years, have been the object of public attention.”
All this novel knowledge was, however, not purchased at a slight cost. It was not only to be snatched up by accidental discovery, but it was more severely tasked by what Steevens called “a course of black-letter!”—dusty volumes, and fugitive tracts, and the wide range of antiquarian research. The sources whence they drew their waters were muddy; and Steevens, who affected more gaiety in his chains than his brothers in the Shakespearian galley, with bitter derision reproached his great coadjutor Malone, whom he looked on with the evil eye of rivalry for drawing his knowledge from “books too mean to be formally quoted.”
The commentators have encumbered the poet, who often has been but a secondary object of their lucubrations, for they not only write notes on Shakespeare, but notes, and bitter ones too, on one another. This commentary has been turned into a gymnasium for the public sports of friendly and of unfriendly wrestlers; where some have been so earnest, that it is evident that, in measuring a cast, they congratulated themselves in the language of Orlando, “If ever he goes alone again, I’ll never wrestle for prize more.”