author, however remote or indirect, to coarse and indelicate subjects; and what adds greatly to the offence, was the endeavour to shield himself from the disgrace which he was conscious of meriting, by annexing to these abominable disquisitions the names of Collins and Amner, the latter belonging to a gentleman of great virtue and piety with whom he had quarrelled, and whose feelings he knew would be agonized by such an attribution.

It is, indeed, a most melancholy consideration, to reflect that some of the worst passions of the human breast, and some of the coarsest language. by which literature has been disgraced, are to be found amongst the race of commentators; a class. of men who, from the very nature of their pursuit, that of emendatory or laudatory criticism, might be thought exempt from such degrading propensities. In this country more especially has this disgusting exhibition, even to the present day, sullied the labours of the commentators on our elder dramatic poesy; and, above all, is it to be deplored that Shakspeare, whose character was remarkable for its suavity and benevolence, who has seldom been mentioned, indeed, by his contemporaries without the epithets gentle or beloved accompanying his name, should have his pages polluted by such a mass of idle contention and vindictive abuse.

Every man of just taste and feeling must be grateful for, and delighted by, the labours of those who are competent to illustrate and explain a

poet so invaluable as Shakspeare, nor could any commentary, with these purposes solely in view, be ever deemed too long or elaborate; but when these critics turn aside from their legitimate object to ridicule, and indeed abuse each other in the grossest manner, to indulge a merciless and malignant triumph over their predecessors or contemporaries, or to bring into broad daylight what common decency requires should be left in its original obscurity, who, whatever may be the wit exhibited in the attempt, but must view such conduct with abhorrence? The enormity, however, carries with it its own punishment, as being indicative of such a temper and such feelings as must necessarily lead those who combat not their influence into wretchedness and self-reproach, and not unfrequently, indeed, into the agonies of despair and the ravings of insanity; consequences which, as partly springing from this source, and partly from religious indifference, have unhappily been exemplified in the closing hours of the witty Steevens and intemperate Ritson; men who, by their caprice or violence, lived without friendship or sympathy, and, owing to their scepticism, died without consolation or hope.'

Dr. Dibdin, describing the character of Ritson under the appellation of Sycorax, remarks, "his malice and ill-nature were frightful; and withal, his love of scurrility and abuse quite intolerable. He mistook, in too many instances, the manner for the matter; the shadow for the substance. He passed his criticisms, and dealt out his invectives with so little cere

From results such as these, which cannot be contemplated without the most painful and humi

mony and so much venom, that he seemed born with a scalping knife in his hand, to commit murder as long as he lived! To him censure was sweeter than praise; and the more elevated the rank, and respectable the character of his antagonist, the more dexterously he aimed his blows, and the more frequently he renewed his attacks."-Bibliomania, p. 9.

A temper such as this, uncontrolled as it was by any restrictive influence from revealed religion, terminated in what might have been anticipated, a loss of reason from the indulgence of unrestrained passion; and he expired in a receptacle for insane persons, at Hoxton, Sept. 3d, 1803!

I sincerely wish a more consolatory account could be given of the closing hours of the witty and accomplished Steevens; but the same writer has furnished us with such an awful yet, at the same time, highly monitory description of his departure, as cannot fail to read a lesson of the very first importance to every human being. "The latter moments," he says, "of STEEVENS were moments of mental anguish. He grew not only irritable, but outrageous; and, in full possession of his faculties, he raved in a manner which could have been expected only from a creature bred up without notions of morality or religion. Neither complacency nor joyful hope' soothed his bed of death. His language was, too frequently, the language of imprecation; and his wishes and apprehensions such as no rational Christian can think upon without agony of heart. though I am not disposed to admit the whole of the testimony of the good woman who watched by his bed-side, and paid him, when dead, the last melancholy attentions of her officealthough my prejudices (as they may be called) will not allow me to believe that the windows shook, and that strange noises and deep groans were heard at midnight in his room-yet no creature of common sense (and this woman possessed the quality in an eminent degree) could mistake oaths for prayers,

Al

liating emotions, I now turn with pleasure to the last great editor of Shakspeare, Mr. Malone, who, though not possessing a particle of the wit and humour of Steevens, was his equal in point of general knowledge and Shakspearian lore. Steevens had early discovered and appreciated the editorial acumen and patient research of Malone, and an intimacy, at first very cordial, took place between them, the former trusting to avail himself of the talents of his new friend in the capacity of an humble and very useful coadjutor. When the latter, however, relying on his own resources, ventured to publish, in 1780, a Supplement to the edition of 1778, Steevens felt piqued and alarmed, sensations which arose even to enmity on Malone's intimating his intention of bringing forth a new and entirely independent edition of the bard; a design which the elder commentator thus mentions with no little poignancy and humour in a letter to Mr. Warton, in April 1783: "Whatever the vege

or boisterous treatment for calm and gentle usage. If it be said-why

'draw his frailties from their dread abode?' the answer is obvious, and, I should hope, irrefragable. A duty, and a sacred one too, is due TO THE LIVING. Past examples operate upon future ones; and posterity ought to know, in the instance of this accomplished scholar and literary antiquary, that neither the sharpest wit, nor the most delicate intellectual refinement, can, alone, afford a man PEACE AT THE LAST.' The vessel of human existence must be secured by other anchors than these, when the storm of death approaches!"— Bibliomania, p. 589.

table spring may produce," he observes, "the critical one will be prolific enough. No less than six editions of Shakspeare (including Capell's notes, with Collins's prolegomena) are now in the mashtub. I have thrown up my licence. Reed is to occupy the old red lattice, and Malone intends to froth and lime at a little snug booth of his own construction. Ritson will advertise sour ale against his mild.

Little, it is evident, was now wanting to establish a complete breach between these rival annotators, and this little occurred very shortly afterwards; for Malone having contributed some notes to the edition of Shakspeare published, in 1785, under the superintendence of Reed, in which he occasionally opposed the dicta of Steevens, the latter demanded that these notes should be republished verbatim in the promised edition of Malone, that he might have an opportunity of answering them as they were originally written; a proposal, which on Malone's indignantly refusing to listen to, an open rupture, as to Shakspeare, took place between them; and when the edition of Malone came forth in 1790, Steevens angrily commenced his threatened task, the result appearing in his own re-impression of the bard in 1793; in which, whilst he availed himself of the labours of his rival, he ungenerously affected to treat his opinions with ridicule and contempt.

'Wooll's Biographical Memoirs of the Rev. Joseph Warton, D.D. p. 398.