modern editor. But he was followed by Hanmer, who, as his chief interest was to rival Pope, was content with Pope’s methods. It is easy to underestimate the value of Hanmer’s edition; his happy conjectures have been prejudiced by his neglect of the older copies and his unfortunate attempt to regularise the metre; but what alone concerns us here is that he reverts to the methods which Theobald had discarded. Warburton, confident in his intellectual gifts, was satisfied with Theobald’s examination of the early copies, and trusted to his own insight “to settle the genuine text.” The critical ingenuity of editors and commentators, before the authority of the Folios was established, betrayed them into inevitable error. The amusing variety of conjectural readings was met by the exquisite satire of Fielding,(21) as well as by the heavy censure of Grub Street. “It is to be wished,” says a catchpenny publication, “that the original text of Shakespeare were left unaltered for every English reader to understand. The numerous fry of commentators will at last explain his original meaning away.”(22) This criticism was out of date by the time of Johnson and Capell. As it has long been the fashion to decry Johnson’s edition, it is well to recall two statements in his Preface, which show that he had already discovered what later editors have found out for themselves: “I collated all the folios at the beginning, but afterwards used only the first.”(23) “It has been my settled principle that the reading of the ancient books is probably true.... As I practised conjecture more, I learned to trust it less.” Johnson’s collation may not have been thorough; but no modern editor can say that he proceeded on a wrong method. Johnson has included in his Preface an account of the work of earlier editors, and it is the first attempt of the kind which is impartial. He shows that Rowe has been blamed for not performing what he did not undertake; he is severe on Pope for the allusion to the “dull duty of an editor,” as well as for the performance of it, though he also finds much to praise; he does more justice to Sir Thomas Hammer than has commonly been done since; and he is not silent on the weaknesses of Warburton. The only thing in this unprejudiced account which is liable to criticism is his treatment of Theobald. But the censure is as just as the praise which it is now the fashion to heap on him. Though Theobald was the first to pay due respect to the original editions, we cannot, in estimating his capacity, ignore the evidence of his correspondence with Warburton. In the more detailed account of his work given below, it is shown that there was a large measure of justice in the common verdict of the eighteenth century, but it was only prejudiced critics like Pope or Warburton who would say that his Shakespearian labours were futile. Johnson is careful to state that “what little he did was commonly right.”