It is clear from the foregoing that Theobald wrote most of the Preface topic by topic, and probably followed the plan for the general structure as submitted by Warburton. Yet it is equally clear that certain parts of the Preface, such as the contrast between Julius Caesar and Addison's Cato, which Warburton later claimed as his and which Theobald omitted from his second edition, were furnished Theobald as "additional Inrichments" (D.N. Smith, Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare, 1903, pp. xlviii-ix). When later a break did occur between the two men, neither was free from blame. Theobald had asked and got so much help with the Preface that he should have acknowledged the debt, no matter how naked it might have made him seem. Warburton, on the other hand, had had honest warning that acknowledgement would not be made for this part of his help; and if his synopsis were followed, as seems likely, his condemnation of the Preface as "Theobald's heap of disjointed stuff" was disingenuous, to say the least. Far less defensible was his assertion in the same letter to Thomas Birch that, apart from the section on Greek texts, virtually the entire Preface was stitched together from notes which he had supplied (Nichols, Illustrations, II, 81).
Three further points concerning the Preface demand mention. First, the section on Shakespeare's life is often dismissed as a simple recension of Rowe's Life (1709). Actually, however, the expansion itself is a characteristic example of Theobald's habit of exploring original sources. To take only a single instance, Rowe says that Shakespeare's "Family, as appears by the Register and Publick Writings relating to that Town, were of good Figure and Fashion there, and are mention'd as Gentlemen" (ed. S.H. Monk, Augustan Society Reprints, 1949, p. ii). To this statement Theobald adds plentiful detail drawn from the same Stratford records, from tombs in the Stratford Church, and from documents in the Heralds' Office connected with the coat of arms obtained for the playwright's father. Such typical expansions were the result of conscientious research.
Second, all critics have agreed to condemn the digression in which Theobald advertised his ability to emend Greek texts. Theobald himself was hesitant about including it lest he be indicted for pedantry, but was encouraged to do so by Warburton, who later scoffed at what he had originally admired. This much may be said in Theobald's behalf. Such a digression would not have seemed irrelevant in an age which took its classical scholarship seriously; and such digressions, arising naturally out of context and strategically placed before the conclusion, were not only allowed but actually encouraged by classical rhetoricians like Cicero and Quintilian, whose teachings were still standard in the English schools.
Finally, the Preface exists in two forms. The later and shorter form was that designed for Theobald's second edition (1740), which omits all passages presumably contributed by Warburton and more besides, the section on Greek texts, and the list of acknowledgements to contemporary Shakespearian enthusiasts. This abridged form has been frequently reprinted. From a copy in the University of Michigan Library the original Preface is here reproduced for the first time.
Hugh G. Dick
University of California,
Los Angeles
THE
WORKS
OF
SHAKESPEARE:
IN
SEVEN VOLUMES.