Samuel Weller
Singer
1783 - 1858
"Fortune, however, seems to have been propitious to his labours, for he flatters himself that he has been enabled in many instances to present the reader with more satisfactory explanations of difficult passages, and with more exact definitions of obsolete words and phrases, than are to be found in the notes to the variorum editions. "
—S. W. Singer, Preface to the 1826 edition of The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare
- Introduction
- On Singer, from The Cambridge History of English Literature
- "Samuel Weller Singer" from Shakespeariana
- Singer's Preface to the 1826 edition of the Dramatic Works
- Links to Singer's 1826 Edition of the Works
- Links to other works by Singer
- Related Links
Singer's edition of 1826 was a reaction against the past variorum editions with their extensive notes, especially that of James Boswell the younger issued in 1821. In his preface Singer says, "The text of the present edition is formed upon those of Steevens and Malone, occasionally compared with the early editions; and the satisfaction arising from a rejection of modern unwarranted deviations from the old copies has not unfrequently been the reward of this labour." In fact the Singer edition continues the tradition of the Johnson, Steevens, Reed and Malone texts without continuing the critical apparatus so apparent in the those editions. The long shadow of the editorial tradition of the mid and late eighteenth century continues in evidence, however, silently in the text and acutely in Singer's Preface, which is presented below.
Singer was a self-made literary man, with little formal education and the enormous energy. He succeeded by standing on the often unacknowledged shoulders of his 18th century betters, particularly Dr. Johnson who he shamelessly employs to add richness to his edition while demeaning him in its Preface and annotations. In the notes from the variorum editions that do survive in Singer--which are more extensive than his protestations would lead one to believe--many are unaccredited borrowings, which he excuses en masse by saying "The plan pursued in the selection, abridgment, and concentration of the notes of others, precluded the necessity of affixing the names of the commentators from whom the information was borrowed; and, excepting in a few cases of controversial discussion, and of some critical observations, authorities are not given." This has been called, perhaps not unjustly, by some critics plagiarism.
Of keen interest to literary historians is Singer's Preface with its full-blown bardolatry and embrace of the English and German Romantic interpretations of Shakespeare as the poet of nature. His comments on many of his predecessors are, unfortunately, unattractive, as he stood on their shoulders, as it were, and dropped bricks on their venerable heads.
On Singer, from
The Cambridge
History of English Literature, vol. V, Adolphus William Ward,
Alfred Rayney Waller, Putnam, 1910,
p. 309. "Nineteenth century editors may be distinguished broadly by their
attitude to these two texts. Samuel Weller Singer (1826) mainly followed
the text of Malone. He led a revolt against superfluous notes and bulky
volumes; but he went to the opposite extreme. Out of scores of
emendations incorporated in it, chiefly from Theobald, only a few are
assigned to their authors, while, in the Life prefixed to the edition,
we are told that "Theobald did not wholly abstain from conjecture, but
the palm of conjectural criticism was placed much too high for the reach
of his hand." Singer was the first to attempt a refutation of Collier's
'corrector.'" [see Other Important Works
by Singer, below]
"Samuel Weller Singer," from the Editors of Shakespeare series by
J. Parker Norris, published in
Shakespeariana,
vol. IV, 1887,
pp.351-354. Few details concerning the life of Samuel Weller Singer have been
preserved. He is believed to have been born in 1783, and was a native of
England, but where he was born, or who were his parents, are matters
which are unknown. He early exhibited a love for literature, and edited,
among other works, Fairfax's Tasso in 1817, in two volumes octavo; Sir
T. More's Life of Richard the Third, 1821, duodecimo; Cavendish's Life
of Wolsey, 1825, two volumes octavo; Herrick's Poetical Works, 1846, two
volumes octavo; and Wayland Smith, 1847, duodecimo, and Bacon's Essays,
1856, octavo. When Collier published his Notes and Emendations, Singer
replied to them in The Text of Shakespeare Vindicated, 1853. Collier's
volume, it will be remembered, gave an account of his finding the famous
Corrected Folio of 1632, and many of the principal corrections contained
in it. Singer was determined not to be outdone by his friend, and in the
preface to The Text of Shakespeare Vindicated, he tells us that in June,
1852, he
purchased from Mr. Willis, the bookseller, a copy of the second
folio edition of Shakespeare, in its original binding, which, like
that of Mr. Collier, contains very numerous manuscript corrections
by several hands; the typographical errors, with which that edition
abounds, are sedulously corrected, and the writers have also tried
their hands at conjectural emendation extensively. Many of these
emendations correspond with those in Mr. Collier's volume, but
chiefly in those cases where the error in the old copy was pretty
evident, but the readings often vary, and sometimes for the better.
Singer died December 20, 1858, and his valuable library was sold at
auction in 1860. His first edition of Shakespeare was published in
1826, in ten volumes duodecimo, with the following title:—
The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare, With Notes, original
and selected, by Samuel Weller Singer, F.S.A., and a Life of the
Poet, by Charles Symmons, D.D. Vol. I. Chiswick : Charles
Whittingham, College House. 1826. The first volume contains an engraved portrait of Shakespeare, from
the Chandos picture, drawn by W. Harvey, and engraved by John Thompson.
The title-page of each volume also has a quaint wood-cut illustrating
one of the scenes in the plays. The book is further illustrated by seven
cuts showing the 'Seven ages of man,' and also with one scene from each
play, which precedes the play it illustrates. In his preface Singer
says:—
As a new candidate for public favour, it may be expected that the
Editor should explain the ground of his pretensions. The object then
of the present publication is to afford the general reader a correct
edition of Shakspeare, accompanied by an abridged commentary, in
which all superfluous and refuted explanations and conjectures, and
all the controversaries and squabbles of contending critics should
be omitted ; and such elucidations only of obsolete words and
obscure phrases, and such critical illustrations of the text as
might be deemed most generally useful be retained. To effect this it
has been necessary, for the sake of compression, to condense in some
cases several pages of excursive discussion into a few lines, and to
often blend together the information conveyed in the notes of
several commentators into one. When these explanations are mere
transcripts or abridgments of the labours of his predecessors, and
are unaccompanied by any observation of his own, it will, of course,
be understood that the Editor intends to imply by silent
'acquiescence that he has nothing better to propose.' Fortune,
however, seems to have been propitious to his labours, for he
flatters himself he has been enabled in many instances to present
the reader with more satisfactory explanations of difficult
passages, and with more exact definitions of obsolete words and
phrases, than are to be found in the notes to the variorum editions. Following the preface there is printed a life of the poet by Dr.
Charles Symmons, commendatory verses, etc. Each play is preceded by
'preliminary remarks,' which are mainly taken from other writers. The
notes are brief, and most of them condensed from those of former
editors. The text is good, and owing to the beauty of its typography and
the convenient form in which it appeared, the edition was long a
favorite, and was often reprinted.
In 1853 Singer determined to issue another edition of his work, and
set about its preparation. In 1856 it appeared in ten volumes duodecimo.
It was from the Chiswick press as the former edition had been, and fully
sustained the reputation for typography that Whittingham's books have
always had. The title-page is as follows:—
The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare, the text carefully
revised, with notes, by Samuel Weller Singer, F.S.A. ; the life of
the poet, and critical essays on the plays, by William Watkiss
Lloyd, M.R.S.L., etc., etc., London : Bell and Daldy, Fleet Street.
1856.
The first volume contains an engraved copy of the Stratford Bust, by
E. Radclyffe; and there are wood-cuts, representing some scene in the
plays, on the title-page of each volume. This edition is dedicated to
Francis Douce, in recognition of his antiquarian learning, and in token
of Singer's friendship for him. In the preface Singer says:—
In preparing the present edition, after a sedulous collation of
the old authentic copies, it has been'my endeavour to suggest such
emendations and explanations as a careful and mature consideration
of the corrupt and obscure passages, taken with the context, seemed
to indicate; and it will be seen that I have freely availed myself
of the labours of all my predecessors I have passed over nothing
which seemed to me to require elucidation, and if the critical and
initiated reader should complain of superfluous comment, I must
request him to remember that the book is not intended for such
readers alone who have already made the poet their study, but for
popular use, for those who may require such aid.
The plays are arranged in the order that they appeared in the First
Folio, and each one is followed by a critical essay by Mr. Lloyd. These
essays are charmingly written, and show much familiarity with the
subject. The notes are short and are at the bottom of the page. The text
is good, and in the main follows the old copies. Where any change is
made due notice is given, and Singer has produced what he aimed to do—a
well-edited edition, in handy form, for the popular reader. It has since
been reprinted by the owners of the plates, but without material change.
Singer's knowledge of old English literature was extensive, and his
short and sensible notes are often of the greatest possible assistance
to the reader. The second edition was a great improvement on the first,
and it has not been entirely superseded by any of the numerous forms in
which the poet's works have since been presented to the world.
Singer's Preface to the 1826 edition of the Dramatic Works
Editor's Preface [1] 'Can it be wondered at (says Mr.
Gifford1) that Shakspeare2
should swell into twenty or even twice twenty volumes, when the latest
editor (like the wind Cecias3)
constantly draws round him the floating errors of all his predecessors.'
Upwards of twenty years ago, when the evil was not so great as it has
since become, Steevens4 confessed that
there was an ' exuberance of comment,' arising from the ' ambition in
each little Hercules to set up pillars ascertaining how far he had
travelled through the dreary wilds of black letter;' so that there was
some danger of readers being ' frighted away from Shakspeare, as the
soldiers of Cato deserted their comrade when he became bloated with
poison—crescens fugere cadaver.5' He
saw with a prophetic eye that the evil must cure itself, and that the
time would arrive when some of this ivy must be removed, which only
served to ' hide the princely trunk, and suck the verdure out of it.'
[2] This expurgatory task has been more than once undertaken,
but has never hitherto, it is believed, been executed entirely to the
satisfaction of the admirers of our great Poet: and the work has even
now devolved upon one who, though not wholly unprepared for it by
previous studies, has perhaps manifested his presumption in undertaking
it 'with weak and unexamined shoulders.' He does not, however, shrink
from a comparison with the labours of his predecessors, but would rather
solicit that equitable mode of being judged; and will patiently, and
with all becoming submission to the decision of a competent tribunal,
abide the result. [3] As a new candidate for public favour, it
may be expected that the Editor should explain the ground of his
pretensions. The object then of the present publication is to afford the
general reader a correct edition of Shakspeare, accompanied by an
abridged commentary, in which all superfluous and refuted explanations
and conjectures, and all the controversies and squabbles of contending
critics should be omitted; and such elucidations only of obsolete words
and obscure phrases, and such critical illustrations of the text as
might be deemed most generally useful be retained. To effect this it has
been necessary, for the sake of compression, to condense in some cases
several pages of excursive discussion into a few lines, and often to
blend together the information conveyed in the notes of several
commentators into one. When these explanations are mere transcripts or
abridgments of the labours of his predecessors, and are unaccompanied by
any observation of his own, it will of course be understood that the
Editor intends to imply by silent 'acquiescence that he has nothing
better to propose.' Fortune, however, seems to have been propitious to
his labours, for he flatters himself that he has been enabled in many
instances to present the reader with more satisfactory explanations of
difficult passages, and with more exact definitions of obsolete words
and phrases, than are to be found in the notes to the variorum editions.
[4] The causes which have operated to
overwhelm the pages of Shakspeare with superfluous notes are many; but
Steevens, though eminently fitted for the task he undertook, was chiefly
instrumental in increasing the evil. He has indeed been happily
designated 'the Puck of commentators6:'
he frequently wrote notes, not with the view of illustrating the Poet,
but for the purpose of misleading Malone7,
and of enjoying the pleasure of turning against him that playful
ridicule which he knew so well how to direct. Steevens, like Malone,
began his career as an editor of Shakspeare with scrupulous attention to
the old copies, but when he once came to entertain some jealousy of
Malone's intrusion into his province, he all at once shifted his ground,
and adopted maxims entirely opposed to those which guided his rival
editor. Upon a recent perusal of a considerable portion of the
correspondence between them, one letter seemed to display the
circumstances which led to the interruption of their intimacy in so
clear a light, and to explain the causes which have so unnecessarily
swelled the comments on Shakspeare, that it has been thought not
unworthy of the reader's attention. The letter has no date:—
[5] Sir,—I am at present so much harrassed with private
business that it is not in my power to afford you the long and
regular answer which your letter deserves. Permit me, however, to
desert order and propriety, replying to your last sentence first.—I
assure you that I only erased the word friend because, considering
how much controversy was to follow, that distinction seemed to be
out of its place, and appeared to carry with it somewhat of a
burlesque air. Such was my single motive for the change, and I hope
you will do me the honour to believe I had no other design in it.
[6] 'As it is some time since my opinions have had the good
fortune to coincide with yours in the least matter of consequence, I
begin to think so indifferently of my own judgment, that I am ready
to give it up without reluctance on the present occasion.—You are at
liberty to leave out whatever parts of my note you please. However
we may privately disagree, there is no reason why we should make
sport for the world, for such is the only effect of publick
controversies; neither should I have leisure at present to pursue
such an undertaking, I only meant to do justice to myself; and as I
had no opportunity of replying to your reiterated contradictions in
their natural order, on account of your perpetual additions to them;
I thought myself under the necessity of observing, that I ought not
to be suspected of being impotently silent in regard to objections
which I had never read till it was too late for any replication on
my side to be made. You rely much on the authority of an editor; but
till I am convinced that volunteers are to be treated with less
indulgence than other soldiers, I shall still think I have some
right at least to be disgusted; especially after I had been
permitted to observe that truth, not victory, was the object of our
critical warfare. [7] 'As for the
note at the conclusion of The Puritan, since it gives so much
offence (an offence as undesigned as unforeseen), I will change a
part of it, and subjoin reasons for my dissent both from you and Mr.
Tyrwhitt8. You cannot surely
suspect me of having wished to commence hostilities with either of
you; but you have made a very singular comment on this remark
indeed. Because I have said I could overturn some of both your
arguments on other occasions with ease, you are willing to infer
that I meant all of them. Let me ask, for instance sake, what would
become of his " undertakers," &c. were I to advance all I could on
that subject. I will not offend you by naming any particular
position of your own which could with success be disputed. I cannot,
however, help adding, that had I followed every sentence of your
attempt to ascertain the order of the plays, with a contradiction
sedulous and un-remitted as that with which you have pursued my
Observations on Shakspeare's Will and his Sonnets, you at least
would not have found your undertaking a very comfortable one. I was
then an editor, and indulged you with even a printed foul copy of
your work, which you enlarged as long as you thought fit.— The
arrival of people on business prevents me from adding more than that
I hope to be still indulged with the correction of my own notes on
the Y[orkshire] T[ragedy]. I expect almost every one of them to be
disputed, but assure you that I will not add a single word by way of
reply. I have not returned you so complete an answer as I would have
done had I been at leisure. You have, however, the real sentiments
of your most humble servant, G. STEEVENS.'
[8] The temper in which this letter was written is obvious.
Steevens was at the time assisting Malone in preparing his Supplement to
Shakspeare, and had previously made a liberal present to him of his
valuable collection of old plays; he afterwards called himself 'a
dowager editor,' and said he would never more trouble himself about
Shakspeare. This is gathered from a memorandum by Malone, but Steevens
does in effect say so in one of his letters; adding, 'Nor will such
assistance as I may be able to furnish ever go towards any future
gratuitous publication of the same author: ingratitude and impertinence
from several booksellers have been my reward for conducting two
laborious editions, both of which, except a few copies, are already
sold.'
[9] In another letter, in reply to a remonstrance about the
suspension of his visits to Malone, Steevens says:—'I will confess to
you without reserve the cause why I have not made even my business
submit to my desire of seeing you. I readily allow that any distinct and
subjoined reply to my remarks on your notes is fair; but to change (in
consequence of private conversation) the notes that drew from me those
remarks, is to turn my own weapons against me. Surely, therefore, it is
unnecessary to let me continue building when you are previously
determined to destroy my very foundations. As I observed to you
yesterday, the result of this proceeding would be, that such of my
strictures as might be just on the first copies of your notes, must
often prove no better than idle cavils when applied to the second and
amended edition of them. I know not that any editor has insisted on the
very extensive privileges which you have continued to claim. In some
parts of my Dissertation on Pericles, I am almost reduced to combat with
shadows. We had resolved (as I once imagined) to proceed without reserve
on either side through the whole of that controversy, but finally you
acquainted me with your resolution (in right of editorship) to have the
last word. However, for the future, I beg I may be led to trouble you
only with observations relative to notes which are fixed ones. I
had that advantage over my predecessors, and you have enjoyed the same
over me; but I never yet possessed the means of obviating objections
before they could be effectually made,' &c.
[10] Here then is the secret developed
of the subsequent, unceasing, and unrelenting opposition with which
Steevens opposed Ma- lone's notes: their controversies served not 'to
make sport for the world/ but to annoy the admirers of Shakspeare, by
overloading his page with frivolous contention. Steevens had
undoubtedly, as he says of himself on another occasion—
'Fallen in the plash his wickedness had made ;'9 and in some instances contested the force and propriety of his own
remarks when applied by Malone to parallel passages; or, as Malone
observes: 'They are very good remarks, so far forth as they are his; but
when used by me are good for nothing; and the disputed passages become
printers' blunders, or Hemingisms and Condelisms.' Hence his unremitted
censure of the first folio copy, and support of the readings of the
second folio, which Malone treats as of no authority; —his affected
contempt for the Poems of Shakspeare, &c.
[11] Mr. Boswell has judiciously characterised Steevens:—'With
great diligence, an extensive acquaintance with early literature, and a
remarkably retentive memory: he was besides, as Mr. Gifford has justly
observed, "a wit and a scholar." But his wit and the sprightliness of
his style were too often employed to bewilder and mislead us. His
consciousness of his own satirical powers made him much too fond of
exercising them at the expense of truth and justice. He was infected to
a lamentable degree with the jealousy of authorship; and while his
approbation was readily bestowed upon those whose competition he thought
he had no reason to dread, he was fretfully impatient of a brother near
the throne: his clear understanding would generally have enabled him to
discover what was right; but the spirit of contradiction could at any
time induce him to maintain what was wrong. It would be impossible,
indeed, to explain how any one, possessed of his taste and discernment,
could have brought himself to advocate so many indefensible opinions,
without entering into a long and ungracious history of the motives by
which he was influenced.'
[12] Malone was certainly not so happily gifted; though Mr.
Boswell's partiality in delineating his friend, presents us with the
picture of an amiable and accomplished gentleman and scholar. There
seems to have been a want of grasp in his mind to make proper use of the
accumulated materials which his unwearied industry in his favourite
pursuit had placed within his reach: his notes on Shakspeare are often
tediously circumlocutory and ineffectual: neither does he seem to have
been deficient in that jealousy of rivalship, or that pertinacious
adherence to his own opinions, which have been attributed to his
competitor.
[13] It is superfluous here to enlarge on this topic, for the
merits and defects of Johnson, Steevens, and Malone, as commentators on
Shakspeare, and the characters of those who preceded them, the reader
will find sketched with a masterly pen in the Biographical Preface of
Dr. Symmons, which accompanies this edition. The vindication of
Shakspeare from idle calumny and ill founded critical animadversion,
could not have been placed in better hands than in those of the
vindicator of Milton; and his eloquent Essay must afford pleasure to
every lover of our immortal Bard. It should be observed that the Editor,
in his adoption of readings, differs in opinion on some points from his
able coadjutor, with whom he has not the honour of a personal
acquaintance. It is to be regretted that no part of the work was
communicated to Dr. Symmons until nearly the whole of the Plays were
printed; or the Editor and the Public would doubtless have benefited by
his animadversions and suggestions in its progress through the press.
The reader will not therefore be surprised at the preliminary censure of
some readings which are still retained in the text.
[14] Dr. Johnson's far famed
Preface—which has so long hung as a dead weight upon the reputation of
our great Poet, and which has been justly said to look like 'a laborious
attempt to bury the characteristic merits of his author under a load of
cumbrous phraseology, and to weigh his excellencies and defects in equal
scales stuffed full of swelling figures and sonorous epithets,'—will,
for obvious reasons, form no part of this publication. His brief
strictures at the end of each play have been retained in compliance with
custom, but not without an occasional note of dissent. We may suppose
that Johnson himself did not estimate these observations very highly,
for he tells us that 'in the plays which are condemned there may be much
to be praised, and in those which are praised much to be condemned'! Far
be it from us to undervalue or speak slightingly of our great moralist;
but his most strenuous admirers must acknowledge that the construction
of his mind incapacitated him from forming a true judgment of the
creations of one who was 'of imagination all compact,' no less than his
physical defects prevented him from relishing the beautiful and
harmonious in nature and art. 'Quid valet ad surdas si cantet Phemius aures? [15] It has been the studious endeavour
of the Editor to avoid those splenetic and insulting reflections upon
the errors of the commentators, where it has been his good fortune to
detect them, which have been sometimes too captiously indulged in by
labourers in this field of verbal criticism. Indeed it would ill become
him to speak contemptuously of those who, with all their defects, have
deserved the gratitude of the age; for it is chiefly owing to the
labours of Tyrwhitt, Warton, Percy, Steevens, Farmer11,
and their successors, that attention has been drawn to the mine of
wealth which our early literature affords; and no one will affect to
deny that a recurrence to it has not been attended with beneficial
effects, if it has not raised us in the moral scale of nations.
[16] The plan pursued in the selection,
abridgment, and concentration of the notes of others, precluded the
necessity of affixing the names of the commentators from whom the
information was borrowed; and, excepting in a few cases of controversial
discussion, and of some critical observations, authorities are not
given. The very curious and valuable Illustrations of Shakspeare by Mr.
Douce12 have been laid under frequent
contribution ;. the obligation has not always been expressed and it is
therefore here acknowledged with thankfulness.
[17] It will be seen that the Editor has not thought, with some
of his predecessors, that the text of Shakspeare was 'fixed' in any
particular edition 'beyond the hope or probability of future amendment.'
He has rather coincided with the opinion of Mr. Gifford, 'that those
would deserve well of the public who should bring back some readings
which Steevens discarded, and reject others which he has adopted.'
[18] The text of the present edition is formed upon those of
Steevens and Malone, occasionally compared with the early editions; and
the satisfaction arising from a rejection of modern unwarranted
deviations from the old copies has not unfrequently been the reward of
this labour. [19] The preliminary
remarks to each play are augmented with extracts from the more recent
writers upon Shakspeare, and generally contain brief critical
observations, which are in many instances opposed to the dictum of Dr.
Johnson. Some of these are extracted from the Lectures on the Drama, by
the distinguished German critic, A. W. Schleghel13,
a writer to whom the nation is deeply indebted, for having pointed out
the characteristic excellencies of the great Poet of nature, in an
eloquent and philosophical spirit of criticism; which, though it may
sometimes be thought a little tinctured with mystical enthusiasm, has
dealt out to Shakspeare his due meed of praise; and has, no doubt,
tended to dissipate the prejudices of some neighbouring nations who have
been too long wilfully blind to his merits.
[20] Mr. Gifford, as it appears once purposed to favour the
public with an edition of Shakspeare: how admirably that excellent
critic would have performed the task the world need not now be told. The
Editor, who has been frequently indebted to the remarks on the language
of our great Poet which occur in the notes to the works of Ben Jonson
and Massinger, may be permitted to anticipate the public regret that
these humble labours were not prevented by that more skilful hand. As it
is, he must console himself with having used his best endeavour to
accomplish the task which he was solicited to undertake; had his power
equalled his desire to render it useful and acceptable, the work would
have been more worthy of the public favour, and of the Poet whom he and
all unite in idolizing— '——The bard of every age and clime, JUVENAL, SAT. VII Mr. Gifford's Translation. MICKLEHAM,
Quid caecum Thamyram picta tabella juvat?'10
Of genius fruitful and of soul sublime,
Who, from the flowing mint of fancy, pours
No spurious metal, fused from common ores,
But gold, to matchless purity refin'd,
And stamp'd with all the godhead in his mind ;
He whom I feel, but want the power to paint.'
Dec. 3, 1825.
Notes
1. William
Gifford (1756-1826), a self-made literary man, much like Singer; he wrote
early satirical poetry, edited the Anti-Jacobin, and eventually
became the editor of the very influential Quarterly Review
(1809-1824) [see The
Quarterly Review Archive], whose contributors included Lamb, Scott
and Southey. He edited works by Massinger, Jonson and Ford. He
was a leading Tory journalism, and his association with rich Tories assured
his financial independence. [Return
to text] 2. Just as
Shakespeare's name was spelled variously in his lifetime, by 1826 there
still was not a common, agreed upon spelling. This spelling: "Shakspeare"
is the one used throughout Singer. [Return
to text] 3. Cecius: The
north-east wind personified. (OED), for example: "there is nothing so true as that the frock and cowl draw unto itself
the opprobries, injuries, and maledictions of the world, just as the
wind called Cecias attracts the clouds." (Urquhart's translation of
Gargantua,
chpt. 40). "Mr. Hazlitt's mind, to be sure, like the wind Cecias,
always finds its own fog." James Russell Lowell,
My Study Windows,
p. 351. [Return to text] The "latest editor" to whom Singer refers was probably James Boswell the
younger, who issued a 21 volume edition in 1821, known as the Third Variorum
Edition, based on the work of Malone, who left his second Shakespeare
edition materials to Boswell at his death in 1812. (See the
Prolegomena to Boswell's 1821 edition). 4.
George Steevens (1736-1800), the noted Shakespeare editor and commentator.
He cooperated with Dr. Johnson in later editions of Johnson's Shakespeare
(first issued by Johnson alone in 1765) and issued his own edition in 1793.
[Return to text]
5. From the Pharsalia of Lucan, Book IX, l. 804.
[Return to text]
6. The phrase is Gifford's (see Note 1).
Most interesting (and cautionary) is the narrative on Steevens by Isaac
Disraeli (1766-1848 - father of Benjamin, who edited the work) in his
Curiosities of Literature, vol. III, p. 296, "On Puck the
Commentator": "If we possessed the secret history of the literary life of GEORGE
STEEVENS, it would display an unparalleled series of arch deception, and
malicious ingenuity. He has been happily characterised by Mr. Gifford,
as “the Puck of Commentators!” STEEVENS is a creature so spotted over
with literary forgeries and adulterations, that any remarkable one about
the time he flourished may be attributed to him. They were the habits of
a depraved mind, and there was a darkness in his character many shades
deeper than belonged to Puck; even in the playfulness of his invention,
there was usually a turn of personal malignity, and the real object was
not so much to raise a laugh, as to “grin horribly a ghastly smile,” on
the individual. It is more than rumoured, that he carried his ingenious
malignity into the privacies of domestic life; and it is to be
regretted, that Mr. Nichols, who might have furnished much secret
history of this extraordinary literary forger, has, from delicacy,
mutilated his collective vigour. GEORGE STEEVENS usually commenced his
operations by opening some pretended discovery in the evening papers,
which were then of a more literary cast; the St. James’s Chronicle, the
General Evening Post, or the Whitehall, were they not dead, would now
bear witness to his successful efforts. The late Mr. Boswell told me,
that Steevens frequently wrote notes on Shakespeare, purposely to
mislead or entrap Malone, and obtain for himself an easy triumph in the
next edition! STEEVENS loved to assist the credulous in getting up for
them some strange new thing, dancing them about with a Will o’ th’
wisp—now alarming them by a shriek of laughter! and now like a grinning
Pigwiggin sinking them chin-deep into a quagmire! Once he presented them
with a fictitious portrait of Shakespeare, and when the brotherhood were
sufficiently divided in their opinions, he pounced upon them with a
demonstration, that every portrait of Shakespeare partook of the same
doubtful authority! He usually assumed the nom de guerre of Collins, a
pseudo-commentator, when he explored into “a thousand notable secrets”
with which he has polluted the pages of Shakespeare! The marvellous
narrative of the upas-tree of Java, which Darwin adopted in his plan of
“enlisting imagination under the banner of science,” appears to have
been another forgery which amused our “Puck.” It was first given in the
London Magazine, as an extract from a Dutch traveller, but the extract
was never discovered in the original author, and “the effluvia of this
noxious tree, which through a district of twelve or fourteen miles had
killed all vegetation, and had spread the skeletons of men and animals,
affording a scene of melancholy beyond what poets have described, or
painters delineated,” is perfectly chimerical! A splendid flim-flam!
When Dr. Berkenhout was busied in writing, without much knowledge or
skill, a history of our English authors, STEEVENS allowed the good man
to insert a choice letter by George Peele, giving an account of “a merry
meeting at the Globe,” wherein Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and Ned
Alleyne are admirably made to perform their respective parts. As the
nature of the “Biographia Literaria” required authorities, STEEVENS
ingeniously added, “Whence I copied this letter I do not recollect.”
However he well knew it came from “The Theatrical Mirror,” where he had
first deposited the precious original, to which he had unguardedly
ventured to affix the date of 1600; unluckily, Peele was discovered to
have died two years before he wrote his own letter! The date is adroitly
dropped in Berkenhout! STEEVENS did not wish to refer to his original,
which I have often seen quoted as authority... Will it be credited
that for the enjoyment of a temporary piece of malice, STEEVENS would
even risk his own reputation as a poetical critic? Yet this he ventured
by throwing out of his edition the poems of Shakespeare, with a
remarkable hyper-criticism, that “the strongest act of parliament that
could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service.” Not
only he denounced the sonnets of Shakespeare, but the sonnet itself,
with an absurd question, “What has truth or nature to do with sonnets?”
The secret history of this unwarrantable mutilation of a great author by
his editor was, as I was informed by the late Mr. Boswell, merely done
to spite his rival commentator Malone, who had taken extraordinary pains
in their elucidation. Steevens himself had formerly reprinted them, but
when Malone claimed for himself one ivy leaf of a commentator’s pride,
behold, Steevens in a rage would annihilate even Shakespeare himself, to
condemn Malone! In the same spirit, but with more caustic pleasantry, he
opened a controversy with Malone respecting Shakespeare’s wife! It seems
that the poet had forgotten to mention his wife in his copious will; and
his recollection of Mrs. Shakespeare seems to mark the slightness of his
regard, for he only introduced by an interlineation a legacy to her of
his “second best bed with the furniture”—and nothing more! Malone
naturally inferred that “the poet had forgot her, and so recollected her
as more strongly to mark how little he esteemed her. He had already, as
it is vulgarly expressed, cut her off, not indeed with a shilling, but
with an old bed!” All this seems judicious, till Steevens asserts the
conjugal affection of the bard, tells us that the poet having, when in
health, provided for her by settlement, or knowing that her father had
already done so (circumstances entirely conjectural), he bequeathed to
her at his death, not merely an old piece of furniture, but, PERHAPS, as
a mark of peculiar tenderness, 'The very bed that on his bridal night
Received him to the arms of Belvidera!' [Return
to text]
7. Malone is, of course, Edmond Malone (1741-1812), most profound of 18th century Elizabethan scholars and editors of Shakespeare, author of Attempt to ascertain the Order in which the Plays of Shakespeare were written (1778) and the great 1790 edition of the Works. Singer's text is based on the Johnson-Steevens-Reed and Malone texts. See James Prior, The Life of Edmond Malone, 1860. [Return to text]
8. Thomas Tyrwhitt (1730-1786), editor of Chaucer and one-time clerk of the House of Commons. He contributed notes to the 1773 and 1778 Johnson-Steevens editions, to the 1780 Supplement by Malone, and the 1785 Reed Edition (See Brian Vickers, William Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, vol. 5, p. 238). Tyrwhitt's note on undertakers used in Twelfth Night in Steevens' 1793 edition of the Works. [Return to text]
9. From Pope's Dunciad. Book II, ll. 75-76:
Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewrayed,
Fallen in the plash his wickedness had made. [Return to text]
10. Singer's unpleasant allusion is to a note by Steevens in the Johnson and Steevens edition of Macbeth:
"Dr. Johnson's sentiments, on almost all subjects, may justly claim my undissembled homage; but I cannot acquiesce in the condemnation of such stage-exhibitions as his known prejudices, want of attention, eye-sight, and hearing, forbade him to enjoy. His decree, therefore, in the present instance, is, I hope, not irreversible."
Quid valet ad surdas si cantet Phemius aures?
Quid caecum Thamyram picta tabella juvat? STEEVENS
The Latin tag is from Ovid's Amores, Book III, Elegy VII (Translated by A. S. Kline © 2001):
What joy can deaf ears have when Phemis sings?
What joy can blind Thamyras have in painted things? [Return to text]
11. Thomas
Warton (1728-1790) (Thomas is the most probably reference, though Singer
could as well be referring to his brother Joseph, 1722-1800). Thomas Warton was an editor of Milton, issued, from 1774-1781 his History of
English Poetry, and was eventually made Poet Laureate. He and his
brother Joseph were friends of Dr. Johnson's. Thomas Percy (1729-1811)
antiquarian and author in 1765 of Reliques of Ancient Poetry.
Richard Farmer (1735-1797) was a Shakespeare scholar and author in 1767 of
Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare. [Return
to text]
12. Francis Douce (1757-1834) was an antiquary who published Illustrations of Shakespeare in 1807 and The Dance of Death in 1833. Singer's relationship with Douce was personal. He first met Douce when Singer was running a bookshop in St. James Street where Douce was pursuing his antiquarian interests. Douce left Singer a competency at his death in 1834, allowing Singer, who at the time was librarian to the Royal Institution, the freedom to pursue literary studies for the rest of his life. [Return to text]
13. August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845) was a German poet, translator, philosopher, and leader of the German Romantic movement. This paragraph neatly illustrates Jonathan Bate's thesis, in The Genius of Shakespeare (see chapter 6, "The Original Genius"), about the transformed meaning of the term "genius" through the eighteenth century and the elevation of Shakespeare as the National Poet as a reaction against French formalism resulting in a literary thrust into the Romantic movement. [Return to text]
Links to Singer's 1826 Edition of the Works The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare, With Notes, original
and selected, by Samuel Weller Singer, F.S.A., and a Life of the
Poet, by Charles Symmons, D.D. Chiswick : Charles
Whittingham, College House. 1826. The work was published in 10
volumes, based upon the text of Malone. The notes are a mixture of
original content, attributed borrowings, and silent borrowings from
pervious commentators, but are generally brief since the stated purpose
of the volume is: "...to afford the general reader a correct edition of Shakspeare,
accompanied by an abridged commentary, in which all superfluous and
refuted explanations and conjectures, and all the controversies and
squabbles of contending critics should be omitted; and such
elucidations only of obsolete words and obscure phrases, and such
critical illustrations of the text as might be deemed most generally
useful be retained." [Singer's Preface] A wood
cut illustration prefaces each play, followed by Singer's "Preliminary
Remarks," followed by the text. Notes appear footnoted at the
bottom of each single column page in small type. After each play
remarks by Johnson and sometimes Steevens or others are inserted, and
occasionally discussed.
Other Important Works by Singer
- DNB entry for Samuel Weller Singer. Dictionary of National Biography from Earliest Times to 1900. George Smith, Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee. 1897, vol. LII.
