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at extravagant rates, not because they are good, but because they are scarce, so that a fire or an enterprising trunk-maker that should take off nearly the whole of a worthless work, would instantly render the small remainder invaluable.'

Of the previous editions of Massinger's plays, Mr. Gifford speaks in terms of reprehension bordering on contempt. The first of these was by Coxeter, or rather one published from Coxeter's papers by a bookseller of the name of Dell; and in which, we are told, Massinger appeared to less advantage than in the old copies.' A second edition was given by Mr. Thomas Davies: but, on the authority of Mr. Waldron, of Drury-lane Theatre, this is said to be only that of Dell with a new title page. The last labourer in this work was Mr. Monck Mason, and his edition is infinitely worse than Coxeter's.'Alas, poor Massinger!

The genuine merits of the Poet, however, were strong enough to overcome these wretched remoras. The impression was become scarce, and though never worth the paper on which it was printed, sold at an extravagant price, when a new edition was proposed to me by Mr Evans of Pall Mall. Massinger was a favourite; and I had frequently lamented, with many others, that he had fallen into such hands. I saw, without the assistance of the old copies, that his metre was disregarded, that his sense was disjointed and broken, that his dialogue was imperfect, and that he was encumbered with expla natory trash which would disgrace the pages of a sixpenny magazine; and in the hope of remedying these, and enabling the Author to take his place on the same shelf, I will not say with Shakspeare, but with Jonson, Beaumont, and his associate Fletcher, I readily undertook the labour.

My first care was to look round for the old editions. To collect these is not at all times possible, and, in every case, is a work of trouble and expense; but the kindness of individuals supplied me with all that I wanted. Octavius Gilchrist, a gentleman of Stamford, no sooner heard of my design, than he obligingly sent me all the copies which he possessed; the Rev. P. Bayles of Colchester (only known to me by this act of kindness) presented me with a small but choice selection; and Mr. Malone, with a liberality which I shall ever remember with gratitude and delight, furnished me, unsolicited, with his invaluable collection, among which I found all the first editions: these, with such as I could procure in the course of a few months from the booksellers, in addition to the copies in the Museum, and in the rich collection of His Majesty, which I consulted from time to time, form the basis of the present work.'

With these aids, Mr. Gifford undertook the business of collation; and we are informed that every play has undergone, at least, five close examinations with the original text. On this strictness of revision rests the great distinction of this edition from the preceding ones, from which it will be found to

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vary in an infinite number of places: indeed, accuracy, as Mr. M. Mason says, is all the merit to which it pretends; and though I would not provoke, yet I see no reason to deprecate the consequences of the severest scrutiny.'

With respect to the notes in this edition, it is observed that

Those who are accustomed to the crowded pages of our modern editors, will probably be somewhat startled at the comparative nakedness of this. If this be an errour, it is a voluntary one. I never could conceive why the readers of our old dramatists should be suspected of labouring under a greater degree of ignorance than those of any other class of writers; yet, from the trite and insignificant materials amassed for their information, it is evident that a persuasion of this nature is uncommonly prevalent. Customs which are universal, and expressions "familiar as household words" in every mouth, are illustrated, that is to say, overlaid, by an immensity of parallel passages, with just as much wisdom and reach of thought as would be evinced by him who, to explain any simple word in this line, should empty upon the reader all the examples to be found under it in Johnson's Dictionary !'

I have proceeded on a different plan. Passages that only exercise the memory, by suggesting similar thoughts and expressions in other writers, are, if somewhat obvious, generally left to the reader's own discovery. Uncommon and obsolete words are briefly explained, and, where the phraseology was doubtful or obscure, it is illus trated and confirmed by quotations from contemporary authors. In this part of the work, no abuse has been attempted of the reader's patience the most positive that could be found are given, and a scrupulous attention is every where paid to brevity; as it has been. always my persuasion,

That where one's proofs are aptly chosen,

Four are as valid as four dozen."

I do not know whether it may be proper to add here, that the freedoms of the Author (of which, as none can be more sensible than myself so none can more lament them) have obtained little of my solicitude: those, therefore, who examine the notes with a prurient eye, will find no gratification of their licentiousness. I have called in no Amner to drivel out gratuitous obscenities in uncouth language ;* no Collins (whose name should be devoted to lasting infamy) to ransack the annals of a brothel for secrets "better hid" where I wished

not

In uncouth language;] It is singular that Mr. Steevens, who was so well acquainted with the words of our ancient writers, should be so ignorant of their style. The language which he has put into the mouth of Amner is a barbarous jumble of different ages, that never had, and never could have, a prototype.

One book which (not being, perhaps, among the archives so carefully explored for the benefit of the youthful readers of Shaks peare) seems to have escaped the notice of Mr. Colikus, may yet be

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not to detain the reader, I have been silent, and instead of aspiring to
the fame of a licentious commentator, sought only for the quiet ap-
probation with which the father or the husband may reward the
faithful editor.'

Having selected these preliminary observations from Mr.
Gifford's Introduction, which abounds not less with acuteness
of remark than with asperity of censure, we shall proceed to
inquire concerning the success which has attended his own en-
deavours to illustrate his author; and here our attention is na-
turally directed to such of his notes as tend, at the same time,
to throw light on similar passages in our inimitable bard Shak-

speare.

In the Virgin-Martyr, Act. 3. Sc. 3. we have this note:

6 before that peevish lady

Had to do with you,] Peevish is foolish; thus, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Mrs. Quickly says of her fellow servant, "His worst fault is, that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way." Mr. Malone thinks this to be one of dame Quickly's blunders, and that she means to say precise: but I believe he is mistaken. In Hycke Scorner, the word is used in the very sense here given:

"For an I sholde do after your scole

To learn to pater to make me peysse.”

Again in God's Revenge against Adultery; " Albemare kept a man-
fool of some forty years old in his house, who indeed was so na-
turally peevish, as not Milan, hardly Italy, could match him for
simplicity."

After this, we were rather surprised to find the following
observation on a passage in which the word seems to be used in
the same sense. Sir Giles Over-reach is reproving his daughter
for wishing to delay her marriage:

"He tells you true! 'tis the fashion, on my knowlege:
Yet the good lord, to please your peevishness,

Must put it off, forsooth."

New Way to pay old Debts. Act 4. 3, Yet the good lord, to please your peevishness,] i. c. you, his daughter, to whom he gives the title. I have sometimes thought that this mode of expression, which is more common than cursory readers, perhaps, imagine, is not sufficiently attended to by the commentators. Many difficulties would vanish if these appellations were duly noticed, and applied.'

In The Unnatural Combat, Act 2. Sc. 1. we read

safely commended to his future researches, as not unlikely to re-
ward his pains. He will find in it, among many other things equally
valuable, that, "The knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom, neither,
at any time, the counsel of sinners prudence." Eccles. xix. 22.

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• Discourse and reason.] It is very difficult to determine the precise meaning which our ancestors gave to discourse; or to distinguish the line which separated it from reason. Perhaps, it indicated a more rapid deduction of consequences from premises, than was supposed to be effected by reason:-but I speak with hesitation. The acute Glanville says, "the act of the mind which connects propositions, and deduceth conclusions from them, the schools call discourse, and we shall not miscal it, if we name it reason." Whatever be the sense, it frequently appears in our old writers, by whom it is usually coupled with reason or judgment, which last should seem to be the more proper word. Thus in the City Madam: "Such as want Discourse and judgment, and through weakness fall, May merit men's compassion."

Again, in the Coxcomb:

"Why should a man that has discourse and reason,
And knows how near he loses in all these things,
Covet to have his wishes satisfied?"

The reader remembers the exclamation of Hamlet,

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"Oh heaven! a beast that wants discourse of reason," &c. "This," says Warburton, who contrived to blunder with more ingenuity than usually falls to the lot of a commentator, "is finely expressed, and with a philosophical exactness! Beasts want not reason,' (this is a new discovery) "but the discourse of reason: i. e. the regular inferring one thing from another by the assistance of universals"! Discourse of reason is so poor and perplexed a phrase, that, without regard for the philosophical exactness" of Shakspeare, I should dismiss it at once, for what I believe to be his genuine language: "O heaven! a beast that wants discourse and reason, >> &c. Perhaps discourse is thus commonly connected with reason, as forming together the barrier by which man is separated from all other animals.

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In The Bondsman, Act 1. Sc. 3.

• While you

--cry aim!

Like idle lookers on,] Coxeter, who seems not to have understood the expression, gave the incorrect reading of the second quarto, cry, Ay me! which, after all, was nothing more than an accidental disjunction of the last word (ayme) at the press. Mr. M. Mason follows him in the text, but observes, in a note, that we should read cry aim. There is no doubt of it; and so it is distinctly given in the first and best copy. The expression is so common in the writers of Massinger's time, and, indeed, in Massinger himself, that it is difficult to say how it could ever be misunderstood. The phrase, as Warburton observes, Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II. sc. iii. was taken from archery: "When any one had challenged another to shoot at the butts, the standers by used to say one to the other, Cry aim, i. e. accept the challenge." Steevens rejects this explanation, which, in fact, has neither truth nor probability to recommend it; and adds: “ It seems to have been the office of the aim-cryer, to give notice to

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the archer when he was within a proper distance of his mark," &c. Here this acute critick bas fallen with the rest of the commentators, into an errour. Aim! for so it should be printed and not cry aim, was always addressed to the person about to shoot it was an hortatory exclamation of the bystanders, or as Massinger has it, of the idle lookers on, intended for his encouragement. But the mistake of Steevens arises from his confounding cry aim! with give aim. To cry aim! as I have already observed, was to ENCOURAGE; to give aim, was to DIRECT, and in these distinct and appropriate senses the words perpetually occur. There was no such office as aim cryer, as asserted above; the business of encouragement being abandoned to such of the spectators as chose to interfere: to that of direction, indeed, there was a special person appointed. Those who cried aim! stood by the archers; he who gave it, was stationed near the butts, and pointed out after every discharge, how wide, or how short the arrow fell of the mark. An example or two will make all this clear:

i. c.

"It ill becomes this presence to cry aim!

To these ill-tuned repetitions."

to encourage.

"Before his face plotting his own abuse,

To which himself gives aim:

While the broad arrow with the forked head,
Misses his brows but narrowly?" A Mad World

i. c. directs.

"Now to be patient- -were to play the pander
To the viceroy's base embraces, and cry aim!
While he by force," &c.

i. e. encourage them.

"This way I toil in vain, and give but aim

To infamy and ruin; he will fall,

My blessing cannot stay him."

i. e. direct them.

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The Renegade.

The Roaring Girl.

Standyng rather in his window to-cry aime! than help-yng any waye to part the fraye." Fenton's Tragical Discourses. i. e. to encourage

"I myself gave aim thus,-Wide, four bows! short, three and a half." Middleton's Spanish Gypsie.

i. e. directed

I should apologize for the length of this note, were it not that I Aatter myself the distinct and appropriate meaning of these twe phrases is ascertained in it, and finally established.'

Again, in the same scene

Let me wear

Your colours, lady; and though youthful heats,
That look no further than your outward form,
Are long since buried in me, while I live,

I am &c] This is evidently copied from that much contested speech of Othello, Act 1. sc. iii: "I therefore beg it not," &c. as is the following passage, in the Fair Maid of the Inn:

"Shall

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