In 1744, a new edition of Shakespeare’s Works, in six volumes, 4to, was published at Oxford. It appeared with a kind of sanction from the University, as it was printed at the Theatre, with the Imprimatur of the Vice-Chancellor, and had no publisher’s name on the title-page. The Editor is not named—hence he is frequently referred to by subsequent critics as ‘the Oxford Editor’;—but as he was well known to be Sir Thomas Hanmer, we have always referred to the book under his name. We read in the preface: ‘What the Publick is here to expect is a true and correct Edition of Shakespear’s Works, cleared from the corruptions with which they have hitherto abounded. One of the great admirers of this incomparable author hath made it the amusement of his leisure hours for many years past to look over his writings with a careful eye, to note the obscurities and absurdities introduced into the text, and according to the best of his judgment to restore the genuine sense and purity of it. In this he proposed nothing to himself but his private satisfaction in making his own copy as perfect as he could; but as the emendations multiplied upon his hands, other Gentlemen equally fond of the Author, desired to see them, and some were so kind as to give their assistance by communicating their observations and conjectures upon difficult passages which had occurred to them.’
From this passage the character of the edition may be inferred. A country gentleman of great ingenuity and lively fancy, but with no knowledge of older literature, no taste for research, and no ear for the rhythm of earlier English verse, amused his leisure hours by scribbling down his own and his friends’ guesses in Pope’s Shakespeare, and with this apparatus criticus, if we may believe Warburton, ‘when that illustrious body, the University of Oxford, in their public capacity, undertook an edition of Shakespeare by subscription,’ Sir T. Hanmer ‘thrust himself into the employment.’
Whether from the sanction thus given, or from its typographical beauty, or from the plausibility of its new readings, this edition continued in favour, and even ‘rose to the price of 10l. 10s. before it was reprinted in 1770-1, while Pope’s, in quarto, at the same period sold off at Tonson’s sale for 16s. per copy.’ Bohn, p. 2260.
In 1747, three years after Pope’s death, another edition of Shakespeare based upon his appeared, edited by Mr Warburton.
On the title-page are these words: ‘The Genuine Text (collated with all the former Editions, and then corrected and emended) is here settled: Being restored from the Blunders of the first Editors, and the Interpolations of the two Last: with a Comment and Notes, Critical and Explanatory. By Mr Pope and Mr Warburton[9].’
The latter, in his preface, vehemently attacks Theobald and Hanmer, accusing both of plagiarism and even fraud. ‘The one was recommended to me as a poor Man, the other as a poor Critic: and to each of them, at different times, I communicated a great number of Observations, which they managed as they saw fit to the Relief of their several distresses. As to Mr Theobald, who wanted Money, I allowed him to print what I gave him for his own Advantage: and he allowed himself in the Liberty of taking one Part for his own, and sequestering another for the Benefit, as I supposed, of some future Edition. But as to the Oxford Editor, who wanted nothing, but what he might very well be without, the reputation of a Critic, I could not so easily forgive him for trafficking in my Papers without my knowledge; and when that Project fail’d, for employing a number of my Conjectures in his Edition against my express Desire not to have that Honour done unto me.’
Again he says of Hanmer: ‘Having a number of my Conjectures before him, he took as many as he saw fit to work upon, and by changing them to something, he thought, synonimous or similar, he made them his own,’ &c. &c. p. xii.
Of his own performance Warburton says, ‘The Notes in this Edition take in the whole Compass of Criticism. The first sort is employed in restoring the Poet’s genuine Text; but in those places only where it labours with inextricable Nonsense. In which, how much soever I may have given scope to critical Conjecture, when the old Copies failed me, I have indulged nothing to Fancy or Imagination; but have religiously observed the severe Canons of literal Criticism, &c. &c.’ p. xiv. Yet further on he says, ‘These, such as they are, were amongst my younger amusements, when, many years ago I used to turn over these sort of Writers to unbend myself from more serious applications.’
The excellence of the edition proved to be by no means proportionate to the arrogance of the editor. His text is, indeed, better than Pope’s, inasmuch as he introduced many of Theobald’s restorations and some probable emendations both of his own and of the two editors whom he so unsparingly denounced, but there is no trace whatever, so far as we have discovered, of his having collated for himself either the earlier Folios or any of the Quartos.
Warburton[10] was, in his turn, severely criticised by Dr Zachary Grey, and Mr John Upton, in 1746, and still more severely by Mr Thomas Edwards, in his Supplement to Mr Warburton’s edition of Shakespeare, 1747. The third edition of Mr Edwards’s book, 1750, was called Canons of Criticism and Glossary, being a Supplement, &c. This title is a sarcastic allusion to two passages in Warburton’s preface: ‘I once intended to have given the Reader a body of Canons, for literal Criticism, drawn out in form,’ &c. p. xiv, and ‘I had it once, indeed, in my design, to give a general alphabetic Glossary of these terms,’ &c. p. xvi. Dr Grey’s attack was reprinted, with additions, and a new title, in 1751, and again in 1752. Warburton and his predecessors were passed in review also by Mr Benjamin Heath, in A Revisal of Shakespeare’s text, 1765.