[2] In Nashe's Lenten Stuff, 1599, it is said, that no less than six hundred witches were executed at one time. Reed.—Boswell's Shakespeare, xi. 5. Dr. Grey, in his notes on Hudibras, mentions, that Hopkins the noted witch-finder hanged sixty suspected witches in one year. He also cites Hutchinson on Witchcraft for thirty thousand having been burnt in 150 years. See Barrington on Ancient Statutes.
[3] Johnson's apprehensions here are surely unfounded. The region of
Fancy, however, in his mind, was very circumscribed. Mrs. Montague's
chapter on Shakespeare's Preternatural Beings, in her excellent
Essay, will repay perusal. See too Schlegel on Dramatic Literature.
[4] Compare the Incantations of the Erichtho of Lucan, the Canidie of
Horace, the Cantata of Salvator Rosa, "all' incanto all' incante,"
and the Eumenides of Æschylus. The Gothic wildness of Shakespeare's
"weird sisters" will thence be better appreciated.—Ed.
[5] These excellent observations extorted praise from the supercilious Warburton himself. In the Preface to his Shakespeare, published two years after the appearance of Johnson's anonymous pamphlet, he thus alludes to it: "As to all those things which have been published under the titles of Essays, Remarks, Observations, &c. on Shakespeare, (if you except some critical notes on Macbeth, given as a specimen of a projected edition, and written, as appears, by a man of parts and genius,) the rest are absolutely below a serious notice." According to Boswell, Johnson ever retained a grateful remembrance of this distinguished compliment; "He praised me," said he, "at a time when praise was of value to me." Boswell, I. Johnson affixed to this tract, proposals for a Shakespeare in 10 volumes, 18mo. price, to subscribers, 1_l_ 5_s_. in sheets, half-a-guinea of which moderate sum was to be deposited at the time of subscription. The following fuller proposals were published in 1756; but they were not realized until the lapse of nine years from that period. Boswell, I.—Ed.
PROPOSALS FOR PRINTING THE DRAMATICK WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1756.
When the works of Shakespeare are, after so many editions, again offered to the publick, it will, doubtless, be inquired, why Shakespeare stands in more need of critical assistance than any other of the English writers, and what are the deficiencies of the late attempts, which another editor may hope to supply?
The business of him that republishes an ancient book is, to correct what is corrupt, and to explain what is obscure. To have a text corrupt in many places, and in many doubtful, is, among the authors that have written since the use of types, almost peculiar to Shakespeare. Most writers, by publishing their own works, prevent all various readings, and preclude all conjectural criticism. Books, indeed, are sometimes published after the death of him who produced them; but they are better secured from corruption than these unfortunate compositions. They subsist in a single copy, written or revised by the author; and the faults of the printed volume can be only faults of one descent.
But of the works of Shakespeare the condition has been far different: he sold them, not to be printed, but to be played. They were immediately copied for the actors, and multiplied by transcript after transcript, vitiated by the blunders of the penman, or changed by the affectation of the player; perhaps enlarged to introduce a jest, or mutilated to shorten the representation; and printed at last without the concurrence of the author, without the consent of the proprietor, from compilations made by chance or by stealth out of the separate parts written for the theatre; and thus thrust into the world surreptitiously and hastily, they suffered another depravation from the ignorance and negligence of the printers, as every man who knows the state of the press, in that age, will readily conceive.
It is not easy for invention to bring together so many causes concurring to vitiate the text. No other author ever gave up his works to fortune and time with so little care: no books could be left in hands so likely to injure them, as plays frequently acted, yet continued in manuscript: no other transcribers were likely to be so little qualified for their task as those who copied for the stage, at a time when the lower ranks of the people were universally illiterate: no other editions were made from fragments so minutely broken, and so fortuitously reunited; and in no other age was the art of printing in such unskilful hands[1].