Johnson in a new edition of the poet in 1773, in ten volumes octavo. From this period, until his death in 1800, Steevens was incessantly and enthusiastically employed upon his favourite author: a second edition, almost entirely under his revision, appeared in 1778; a third, superintended by Mr. Reed, in 1785; and a fourth, of which, though in the title-page he retained the name of Johnson, he might justly be considered as the independent editor, in 1793. On this last edition, occupying fifteen volumes octavo, and which was subsequently enlarged, by materials which he left behind him, to twenty-one volumes of the same size, and printed under the care of Mr. Reed in 1803, the reputation of Steevens, as an editor and commentator, must entirely rest.

That in the first of these capacities he possessed an uncommon share of industry and perseverance, cannot be denied; for it is recorded that, whilst preparing the edition of 1793, he devoted to it "solely, and exclusively of all other attentions, a period of eighteen months; and during that time he left his house every morning at one o'clock with the Hampstead patrole, and proceeding without any consideration of the weather or the season, called up the compositor, and woke all his devils."

• Vide Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 70, p. 178. This article, which appears to have been written by Mr. Burke, closes with the following very impressive and momentous truth; commenting on the acknowledged talents and erudition of Mr. Steevens, he adds: "When Death, by one stroke, and in one moment,

B

But unfortunately this editorial assiduity, accompanied as it was by great attention to the collation of the oldest copies of his author, was broken in upon and vitiated by his frequent attempts to restore what he conceived wanting to the metrical harmony of the text. He had, in fact, neither heart nor ear for many of the sweetest and most fanciful strains of Shakspeare; and poetry with him being synonymous with accuracy of versification, he hesitated not to adopt many unauthorised readings for the sole purpose of rendering a line mechanically exact; a practice which has, as may well be imagined, very greatly diminished the value of his labours.b

As a commentator, Mr. Steevens possessed many of the first requisites for the due execution of his task. He was a man of great learning and eloquence, and, in many instances, of great sagacity makes such a dispersion of knowledge and intellect-when such a man is carried to his grave-the mind can feel but one emotion we consider the vanity of every thing beneath the sun,

WE PERCEIVE WHAT SHADOWS WE ARE, AND WHAT SHADOWS WE PURSUE."

"Mr. Steevens," observes Mr. Kemble, "had no ear for the colloquial metre of our old dramatists: it is not possible, on any other supposition, to account for his whimsical desire, and the pains he takes, to fetter the enchanting freedom of Shakspeare's numbers, and compel them into the heroic march and measured cadence of epic versification. The ‘native woodnotes wild,' that could delight the cultivated ear of Milton, must not be modulated anew, to indulge the fastidiousness of those who read verses by their fingers." Macbeth and Richard the Third: An Essay, by J. P. Kemble, p. 101.

and acumen; and, above all, he was most intimately conversant with the language and literature, the manners, customs, and superstitions of the age of Shakspeare. But he had with these and other mental endowments, many counteracting qualities and defects, and such, indeed, as have thrown no little odium on his memory. He had, for instance, both wit and humour in no very measured degree, but neither temper nor mercy to controul them; and he had vivacity of imagination, and great point in expression, without a particle of poetic taste and feeling. From a mind thus constituted, much of illustration, and much also of what is revolting and disgusting, might be expected; and these are, in fact, the characteristics of the commentary of George Steevens, in which, whilst a stream of light is often thrown upon the writings of the poet through the editor's intimacy with the obsolete literature of a former age, there runs through a great part of his annotations a vein of the most unsparing though witty ridicule, often indulged at the expense of those whom he had himself entrapped into error, and of which a principal object seems to have been that of irritating the feelings, and exulting over the supposed sufferings of contemporary candidates for critical fame. Nor was this sportive malignancy the worst feature in the literary conduct of Steevens; there was a pruriency in his imagination which led him to dwell with revolting minuteness on any allusion of his

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