The animosities which both Steevens and Malone had the misfortune to excite, have had the effect of throwing some slur on their names as editors, and even as men, and have prevented the fair appreciation and a due acknowledgment of the services they rendered jointly and severally to English literature.
The learning and ability displayed by Malone in denouncing Ireland’s most clumsy and palpable of frauds, would have sufficed for the detection of the most cunningly conceived and skilfully executed.
Among the critics of this time may be mentioned (1) Joseph Ritson, who published in 1783 his Remarks, &c. on the second edition of Johnson and Steevens, and in 1788, The Quip Modest, on the third edition, and (2) John Monck Mason, whose Comments appeared in 1785, and Further Observations in 1798.
In 1803 appeared an edition in 21 volumes 8vo, edited by Isaac Reed. This is called on the title-page ‘the Fifth Edition,’ i.e. of Johnson and Steevens. It is generally known as the first variorum edition. Chalmers’s edition, 9 vols. 8vo, 1805, professes to be printed from the corrected text left by Steevens. The ‘sixth edition’ of Johnson and Steevens, or the second variorum, appeared in 1813, also edited by Reed; the ‘seventh,’ or third variorum, in 1821, edited by James Boswell, from a corrected copy left by Malone.
Among those whose notes were communicated to or collected by various editors from Johnson to Boswell, the best known names are the following: Sir William Blackstone, Dr Burney, Bennet Langton, Collins the poet, Sir J. Hawkins, Musgrave, the editor of Euripides, Dr Percy, editor of the Reliques, and Thomas Warton. Less known names are: Blakeway, J. Collins, Henley, Holt White, Letherland, Roberts, Seward, Smith, Thirlby, Tollet, and Whalley[14].
Harness’s edition, 8 volumes, 8vo, appeared in 1825.
Of the comments published separately during the present century the principal are:
1. Remarks, &c., by E. H. Seymour, 2 vols, 8vo, 1805, in which are incorporated some notes left by Lord Chedworth.
2. Shakspeare’s himself again, by Andrew Becket, 2 vols, 8vo. 1815. The author has indulged in a license of conjecture and of interpretation which has never been equalled before or since. We have nevertheless generally given his conjectures, except when he has gone the length of inventing a word.
3. Shakspeare’s Genius Justified, by Zachary Jackson, 1 vol. 8vo, 1811. As the author himself had been a printer, his judgement on the comparative likelihood of this and that typographical error is worth all consideration. But he sometimes wanders ‘ultra crepidam[15].’