WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: THE CRITICAL HERITAGE VOLUME 2, 1693–1733 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE SERIES General Editor: B.C.Southam The Critical Heritage series collects together a large body of criticism on major figures in literature. Each volume presents the contemporary responses to a particular writer, enabling the student to follow the formation of critical attitudes to the writer’s work and its place within a literary tradition. The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the history of criticism to fragments of contemporary opinion and little published documentary material, such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included in order to demonstrate fluctuations in reputation following the writer’s death. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE VOLUME 2,1693–1733 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE Edited by BRIAN VICKERS London and New York First Published in 1974 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Reprinted in 1995 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P4EE & 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 Compilation, introduction, notes and index © 1974 Brian Vickers All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data ISBN 0-203-19787-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-19790-9 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-13405-6 (Print Edition) FOR PAT ROGERS General Editor’s Preface The reception given to a writer by his contemporaries and near-contemporaries is evidence of considerable value to the student of literature. On one side we learn a great deal about the state of criticism at large and in particular about the development of critical attitudes towards a single writer; at the same time, through private comments in letters, journals or marginalia, we gain an insight upon the tastes and literary thought of individual readers of the period. Evidence of this kind helps us to understand the writer’s historical situation, the nature of his immediate reading-public, and his response to these pressures. The separate volumes in the Critical Heritage Series present a record of this early criticism. Clearly, for many of the highly productive and lengthily reviewed nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers, there exists an enormous body of material; and in these cases the volume editors have made a selection of the most important views, significant for their intrinsic critical worth or for their representative quality— perhaps even registering incomprehension ! For earlier writers, notably pre-eighteenth century, the materials are much scarcer and the historical period has been extended, sometimes far beyond the writer’s lifetime, in order to show the inception and growth of critical views which were initially slow to appear. Shakespeare is, in every sense, a special case, and Professor Vickers is presenting the course of his reception and reputation extensively over a span of three centuries, in a sequence of six volumes, each of which will document a specific period. In each volume the documents are headed by an Introduction, discussing the material assembled and relating the early stages of the author’s reception to what we have come to identify as the critical tradition. The volumes will make available much material which would otherwise be difficult of access and it is hoped that the modern reader will be thereby helped towards an informed understanding of the ways in which literature has been read and judged. B.C.S. Contents PREFACE x INTRODUCTION 1 NOTE ON THE TEXT 15 29 THOMAS RYMER, from A Short View of Tragedy, 1693 16 30 JOHN DENNIS on Rymer, 1693 45 31 JOHN DRYDEN on Rymer, 1693 47 32 CHARLES GILDON on Rymer, 1694 48 33 JOHN DRYDEN on Rymer, March 1694 65 34 JEREMY COLLIER, from A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English 66 Stage, 1698 35 Unsigned work, Shakespeare defended from Collier, 1698 68 36 JOHN DENNIS, Shakespeare defended, 1698 71 37 JAMES DRAKE, Shakespeare defended, 1699 72 38 COLLEY CIBBER, from his adaptation of Richard III, 1700 78 39 SAMUEL COBB, Shakespeare’s artless tragedies, 1700 96 40 CHARLES GILDON, from his adaptation of Measure for Measure, 1700 97 41 JOHN OLDMIXON on the mangling of Shakespeare’s plays, 1700 108 42 JOHN DENNIS on Shakespeare’s morals, 1701 110 43 GEORGE GRANVILLE, from his adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, 1701 112 44 JOHN DENNIS, from his adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1702 122 45 GEORGE FARQUHAR on the Three Unities, 1702 133 46 JOHN DOWNES, Shakespeare on the Restoration stage, 1708 142 47 NICHOLAS ROWE, Shakespeare’s life and works, 1709 144 48 SIR RICHARD STEELE, from the Tatler, 1709–10 152 viii 49 HENRY FELTON on Shakespeare’s genius, 1709 161 50 CHARLES GILDON, Shakespeare’s life and works, 1710 162 51 THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY on Shakespeare, 1710 193 52 ELIJAH FENTON on Shakespeare, January 1711 195 53 JOSEPH TRAPP, Shakespeare and English drama, c. 1712 197 54 SIR RICHARD STEELE on Shakespeare, 1711 199 55 JOSEPH ADDISON on Shakespeare, 1711–14 201 56 JOHN DENNIS on Shakespeare’s genius and morality, 1711 208 57 LEONARD WELSTED, Longinus illustrated from Shakespeare, 1712 219 58 JOHN HUGHES on Othello, April 1713 221 59 LEWIS THEOBALD on King Lear, Othello and Julius Caesar, 1715–17 224 60 THOMAS KILLIGREW the younger, suggestions for adapting Julius Caesar, c. 1715 231 61 THOMAS PURNEY, Shakespeare and francophilia, 1717 234 62 CHARLES GILDON, Shakespeare and the Rules, 1718 238 63 GEORGE SEWELL on the mangling of Shakespeare’s plays, 1719 242 64 JOHN DENNIS, from his adaptation of Coriolanus, 1719 244 65 JOHN DENNIS, letters on Shakespeare, 1719 256 66 LEWIS THEOBALD, from his adaptation of Richard II, 1719 259 67 JOHN DENNIS, Shakespeare and the Rules, 1720 269 68 CHARLES GILDON on Shakespeare’s faults, 1721 271 69 AARON HILL, from his adaptation of Henry V, 1723 274 70 THE DUKE OF WHARTON, in praise of Hill’s Henry V, December 1723 292 71 ALEXANDER POPE, edition of Shakespeare, 1725 296 72 GEORGE SEWELL on Shakespeare’s poems, 1725 307 73 RICHARD SAVAGE on The Rape of Lucrece, May 1725 311 74 LEWIS THEOBALD, from Shakespeare Restored, 1726 313 75 NICHOLAS AMHURST(?) on Cardinal Wolsey, November 1727 326 76 GEORGE ADAMS, Shakespeare and tragedy, 1729 330 77 Unsigned essay, Shakespeare and the actors defended, 1729 332 78 LEWIS THEOBALD on editing Shakespeare, 1729–30 338 ix 79 THOMAS COOKE on the morality of Tate’s King Lear, 1731 343 80 WILLIAM LEVIN on the decline in theatrical taste, 1731 347 81 LEWIS THEOBALD, ‘On the Text of Shakespeare’s Poems’, 1732 349 82 LEWIS THEOBALD, edition of Shakespeare, 1733 353 83 WILLIAM WARBURTON, notes on Shakespeare, 1733 394 A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 402 INDEX 404