Shakespeare’s want of learning, Pope frankly refused to believe in it. He says very wisely:
“There is certainly a vast difference between learning and languages. How far he was ignorant of the latter I cannot determine; but ’tis plain he had much reading at least, if they will not call it learning. Nor is it any great matter, if a man has knowledge, whether he has it from one language or from another. . . . I am inclined to think this opinion proceeded originally from the zeal of the partizans of our author and Ben Jonson, as they endeavoured to exalt the one at the expense of the other. It is ever the nature of parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable as that because Ben Jonson had much the more learning, it was said on the one hand that Shakespeare had none at all; and because Shakespeare had much the most wit and fancy, it was reported on the other that Jonson wanted both. Because Shakespeare borrowed nothing, it was said that Ben Jonson borrowed everything. Because Jonson did not write extempore, he was reproached with being a year about every piece; and because Shakespeare wrote with ease and rapidity, they cried, he never once made a blot. Nay, the spirit of opposition ran so high, that whatever those of the one side objected to in the other, was taken at the rebound and turned into praises; as injudiciously as their antagonists before had made them objections.”
Pope further attributed many of Shakespeare’s errors to the carelessness or ignorance of the first publishers of his works, suggesting that the original copies from which they were printed were no better than the “prompter’s book, or piecemeal parts written out for the use of the actors,” who
may be supposed to have made numerous small excisions and additions.
Thus Pope says in effect that Shakespeare would have been perfect if the age and conditions in which he lived had allowed him. He sees many beauties in him, but he also sees many defects; and his edition of Shakespeare’s works is remarkable chiefly for its omissions of passages which the editor deems unworthy of his author.
Dr. Johnson is by no means so ready metaphorically to grasp Shakespeare by the hand. He follows a procession of editors of more or less ability, and he feels that the time has come for the final settlement of Shakespeare’s true position. Rowe, the first editor, hardly realised his responsibilities, and his edition of the plays which appeared in 1709 has few merits from the critic’s point of view. Pope, who followed him in 1725, had a reputation for brilliance to sustain, and his preface is remarkable rather for neatness of expression than for critical discernment. Theobald came after Pope, in 1733, with much common sense, which made him the laughing-stock of his successors. The next editor, Sir Thomas Hanmer, intended his edition as a tribute to Shakespeare, and what was lacking in criticism was supplied in good paper and printing. Warburton succeeded with a pompous self-assertiveness that expressed itself in amusing but ineffective paradoxes.
Johnson accordingly had a due sense of what was expected of him. His critical equipment consisted in a knowledge of the classical drama, and his æsthetic judgment was founded on the rules by which he had succeeded in his own poetical ventures. Still, he did his best to assume a strictly unbiassed judicial attitude. He did not,
as Macaulay states, take it for granted that “the kind of poetry which flourished in his own time, which he had been accustomed to hear praised from his childhood, and which he had himself written with success, was the best kind of poetry.” He tried deliberately to approach Shakespeare as he approached the Cock Lane Ghost. He dealt with him as with some mysterious phenomenon which was attracting public attention, and which admitted of explanation. The result was, perhaps, the best balanced common-sense judgment on record. It contained, on the one hand, the most tremendous indictment of Shakespeare that is ever likely to be written; and, on the other, a triumphant defence, coupled with much enthusiastic eulogy. Here are some of the “faults which,” as he puts it, “are sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit”:
“He sacrifices virtue to convenience.”
“His plots are often so loosely formed that a very slight consideration may improve them.”