Mr. Hunt prefixes to his work a dedication to Lord Byron, in which he assumes a high tone, and talks big of his "fellow-dignity" and independence: what fellow-dignity may mean, we know not; perhaps the dignity of a fellow; but this we will say, that Mr. Hunt is not more unlucky in his pompous pretension to versification and good language, than he is in that which he makes, in this dedication, to proper spirit, as he calls it, and fellow-dignity; for we never, in so few lines, saw so many clear marks of the vulgar impatience of a low man, conscious and ashamed of his wretched vanity, and labouring, with coarse flippancy, to scramble over the bounds of birth and education, and fidget himself into the stout-heartedness of being familiar with a LORD.
OF SHAKESPEARE
[From The Quarterly Review, October, 1816]
Shakespeare's Himself Again! or the Language of the Poet asserted; being a full and dispassionate Examen of the Readings and Interpretations of the several Editors. Comprised in a Series of Notes, Sixteen Hundred in Number, illustrative of the most difficult Passages in his Plays—to the various editions of which the present Volumes form a complete and necessary Supplement. By ANDREW BECKET. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 730. 1816.
If the dead could be supposed to take any interest in the integrity of their literary reputation, with what complacency might we not imagine our great poet to contemplate the labours of the present writer! Two centuries have passed away since his death—the mind almost sinks under the reflection that he has been all that while exhibited to us so "transmographied" by the joint ignorance and malice of printers, critics, etc., as to be wholly unlike himself. But—post nubila, Phoebus! Mr. Andrew Becket has at length risen upon the world, and Shakespeare is about to shine forth in genuine and unclouded glory!
What we have at present is a mere scantling of the great work in procinctu—[Greek: pidakos ex ieraes oligaelizas]—sixteen hundred "restorations," and no more! But if these shall be favourably received, a complete edition of the poet will speedily follow. Mr. Becket has taken him to develop; and it is truly surprizing to behold how beautiful he comes forth as the editor proceeds in unrolling those unseemly and unnatural rags in which he has hitherto been so disgracefully wrapped:
Tandem aperit vultum, et tectoria prima reponit,—
Incipit agnosci!—
Mr. Becket has favoured us, in the Preface, with a comparative estimate of the merits of his predecessors. He does not, as may easily be conjectured, rate any of them very highly; but he places Warburton at the top of the scale, and Steevens at the bottom: this, indeed, was to be expected. "Warburton," he says, "is the best, and Steevens the worst of Shakespeare's commentators"; (p. xvii) and he ascribes it solely to his forbearance that the latter is not absolutely crushed: it not being in his nature, as he magnanimously insinuates, "to break a butterfly upon a wheel!" Dr. Johnson is shoved aside with very little ceremony; Mr. Malone fares somewhat better; and the rest are dismissed with the gentle valediction of Pandarus to the Trojans—"asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran! porridge after meat!" With respect to our author himself, it is but simple justice to declare, that he comes to the great work of "restoring Shakespeare"—not only with more negative advantages than the unfortunate tribe of critics so cavalierly dismissed, but than all who have aspired to illumine the page of a defunct writer since the days of Aristarchus. As far as we are enabled to judge, Mr. Becket never examined an old play in his life:—he does not seem to have the slightest knowledge of any writer, or any subject, or any language that ever occupied the attention of his contemporaries; and he possesses a mind as innocent of all requisite information as if he had dropped, with the last thunderstone, from the moon.
"Addison has well observed, that 'in works of criticism it is absolutely necessary to have a clear and logical head.'" (p.v.) In this position, Mr. Becket cheerfully agrees with him; and, indeed, it is sufficiently manifest, that without the internal conviction of enjoying that indispensable advantage, he would not have favoured the public with those matchless "restorations"; a few specimens of which we now proceed to lay before them. Where all are alike admirable, there is no call for selection; we shall therefore open the volumes at random, and trust to fortune.
"Hamlet. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?"