| ||
Warburton, Hanmer, and the 1745 Edition of
Shakespeare
by
Giles E. Dawson
THE NEGLECT BY MODERN EDITORS OF A 1745 edition of Shakespeare has led them into errors and false assumptions regarding eighteenth-century emendations of the text. This edition is in six octavo volumes with the following general title in the first volume:
In order to understand the nature of this 1745 edition, and the reasons for its importance, we must go back some fifteen
The next new edition of Shakespeare is that of Hanmer, which made its appearance in 1744, and in this, too, Warburton was involved. At what date Hanmer decided upon the preparation of an edition he nowhere tells us. In May 1737 Warburton spent a week at Mildenhall, Sir Thomas's seat, and at that time the baronet, though interested in constructing a 'correct text in Shakespeare,' had 'no thoughts at all of making it public.'[3] It is not known what motive led Warburton to seek Hanmer out—if indeed he did so. It is not unlikely that he had in the back of his mind even then an edition of his own. His quarrel with Theobald was still fairly fresh, and he may have been thinking of some means of doing himself the justice which he felt he had been denied by Theobald. In October 1737, five months after the meeting with Hanmer, he wrote to Thomas Birch:
Sir Thomas Hanmer's letter from Milden-hall to Oxford, Oct. 28, 1742, is one continued falshood from beginning to end.
It is false that my acquaintance with him began upon an application from me to him. It began upon an application of the present Bishop of London [formerly of Salisbury] to me, in behalf of Sir Thomas Hanmer, and, as I understood, at Sir Thomas Hanmer's desire. The thing speaks itself. It was publicly known that I had written notes on Shakespeare, because part of them were printed; few people knew that Sir Thomas Hanmer had: I certainly did not know; nor indeed, whether he was living or dead.
The falsehood is still viler because it sculks only under an insinuation that I made a journey to him to Milden-Hall, without an invitation, whereas it was at his earnest and repeated request, as appears by his letters, which I have still by me.
After relating that Hanmer had first tried to interest a 'bookseller in London, of the best reputation' (Nichols says this was Tonson), Warburton continues:
One can scarcely help feeling some little annoyance at the tone of nobility and insistent amateurism which Hanmer assumes throughout the whole affair. Scholarly reputation is nothing to him, and the thought of financial gain abhorrent. He has, he writes in the preface to his edition, 'made it the amusement of his leisure hours for many years past to look over his [Shakespeare's] writings.' Yet his conduct, not only in connection with Shakespeare but in other passages of his life, was that of a guileless and generous man. His fault was simplicity, and there was in him neither rancor nor deceit.
Warburton's behaviour, in contrast, attracts little sympathy or confidence. Self-interest is too apparent in all of his relationships—with Theobald, with Pope, with Hanmer. Yet even his enemies—and he was not without them—did not accuse him of out-and-out lying.
I think then that we can reconcile the opposed statements of Hanmer and Warburton without giving the lie to either of them. Bishop Sherlock, perhaps knowing of their common interest in Shakespeare, may well have brought them together in such a way that each felt himself to be the one complimented. During the 'long correspondence' that followed and the week at Mildenhall, Hanmer and Warburton may have exchanged comments on the text without either one mentioning clearly what was probably yet in the mind of each no more than an ill-defined notion of producing an edition. It is even possible that at that time neither had formed such a notion at all. It is certain that Warburton sent Hanmer many notes, which he thought 'mostly wild and out of the way'. A little later,
Aside from the impressive appearance of the six volumes when they appeared in 1744, it is difficult to find much good to say about Hanmer's edition. It competes with Warburton's of 1747 for lowest place among eighteenth-century editions. But palpable as they are, Hanmer's faults as an editor are those common to all editors from Rowe to Johnson. His method was theirs—to reprint the latest edition or editions,[6] accepting their emendations or guesses as the established text and further emending any passage the meaning of which did not strike his fancy.[7] All the editors made some pretence of examining or even collating first editions, but none were systematic in this, and all, persuaded of the corrupt state of the early texts, exercised varying degrees of license in correcting them. Hanmer was
Such methods are avoided by modern editors, like the Furnesses and their successors in the New Variorum. These want to know who is responsible for each reading and are punctilious in assigning credit for each. But when they come to deal with Hanmer and Warburton they are, without knowing it, too often working in the dark. As a result Hanmer has been given credit—or should I say discredit?—for a great many readings which belong to Warburton. To Theobald too, though much less often, have been assigned emendations which originated with Warburton.
The sole value of the 1745 edition, which is the subject of this paper, lies in the fact that it constitutes, as I believe, a reliable key by which these errors can be corrected.
The 'Advertisement from the Booksellers' informs the reader that the plan followed in this reprint of the 1744 Oxford edition of Hanmer is to mark those passages in the text altered by Hanmer and to 'place the discarded Readings at the bottom of the Page, as also to point out the Emendations made by Mr. Theobald, Mr. Warburton, and Dr. Thirlby,[8] in Mr. Theobald's Edition, which are used by this Editor'—that is by Hanmer.
The question which must now be considered is who could have done this work on the 1744 Hanmer text. It can be demonstrated, I believe, that it was Warburton himself. The 'Advertisement from the Booksellers' continues, after the sentence quoted in the paragraph just above:
The greater part of the work, it is true, could have been done by anyone—simply by collating Hanmer's text with Theobald's and Pope's. In this way it would be an easy matter to determine where Hanmer departs from the 'old edit.'—from Pope, that is —and where he follows Theobald. Where Theobald has followed a reading suggested to him by Warburton or Thirlby, his footnote almost invariably makes this clear, and thus if Hanmer adopts one of these readings his source is apparent. But frequently one finds in the 1745 edition a note reading 'old edit. Warb. emend.' when a glance at Theobald's text shows that that editor had not adopted the reading or even mentioned it in a note (as he occasionally did do) as a discarded possibility suggested by Warburton. These readings, then, appear in print for the first time in Hanmer's first edition; yet the textual annotator of 1745 assigns them to Warburton. Something like half of all the emendations claimed for 'Warb.' in the footnotes of the reprint are of this kind.
In light of what we know about Warburton's relations with Theobald and Hanmer it is not difficult to explain these assignments
- Com. of Errors, IV.iii.28. Theob. morris-pike MS and Han. Maurice-pike
- All's Well, IV.v.42. Theob. hotter MS and Han. honour'd
- John, IV.ii.255. Theob. murd'rous MS and Han. murd'rer's
- Romeo and Jul., III.v.32. Theob. would they had MS and Han. wot they have
- Othello, IV.i.42. Theob. instruction MS and Han. induction
- Ant. and Cleo., IV.xv.10. Theob. Burn the great Sphere MS Turn from th'great, &c. Han. Turn from the Sphere
The treatment of these and other emendations claimed by Warburton in the 1745 footnotes at the hands of New Variorum editors and the old Cambridge editors (1863-66), shows that the 1745 edition ought to be better known than it has been.
- Macbeth, I.ii.14. Theob. quarry Han. quarrel (claimed by Warb.) Cambridge attributes emendation to Hanmer, Furness to Johnson!
- 1 Henry IV, III.ii.13. Theob. attempts Han. attaints (claimed by Warb.) Cambridge and Hemingway attribute emendation to Hanmer.
- 2 Henry IV, IV.i.175. Theob. purposes confin'd Han. properties confirm'd (claimed by Warb.) Cambridge and Shaaber attribute emendation to Hanmer.
In view of Warburton's animosity toward the Oxford editor one might well question his trustworthiness to perform his task in an even reasonably judicious manner. There does not seem to be any way of proving, for example, that he did not appropriate to himself, in the 1745 footnotes, more emendations than he had a right to. But to me it seems unlikely that he did such a thing. Neither Hanmer nor anyone else is known to have made such a charge. Zachary Grey, whose Word or Two of Advice to William
A few words remain to be said about the publication of the edition. At the beginning of the century the Shakespeare copyrights were divided between the Tonson firm and the Wellington firm, the former owning the greater part.[11] In spite of the Copyright Act of 1710 these firms continued with fair success to claim the exclusive right to publish Shakespeare. All but one of the important editions from Rowe (1709) to Johnson (1765) were in fact published by the Tonsons—usually in association with the Wellingtons and often, as in 1745, with a number of other booksellers. The one exception was the Oxford edition of 1744—Hanmer's first edition—which in the eyes of the Tonsons and Wellingtons constituted a brazen piracy. On 11 April 1745 Jacob Tonson III, having seen proposals of Edward Cave to publish an edition of Shakespeare, wrote in a letter of warning to Cave:
When this 'Advertisement' asks the public to 'suspend their Opinion of his [Warburton's] Conjectures 'till they see how they can be supported', it seems clear that Warburton was at work on his own edition. This was published in 1747—by the Tonsons and their associates. We may infer, then, that in 1745 Warburton had already entered into an agreement with his publishers. Though it is not improbable that it was the Tonsons who initiated the reprint—as a protest against the 'piracy', in order that they might not give the appearance of acquiescing in it—it is difficult to see how they could have regarded the careful textual apparatus as a necessary adjunct to it. It is therefore probable that this was added at the suggestion of Warburton as his own personal revenge on 'the Honourable Editor'. He may have wished at the same time to establish his own right to the emendations which he had supplied to Hanmer—most of which he was to use in his own edition of 1747.
Notes
Warburton had evidently kept copies of all the emendations and notes which he had through their long correspondence sent to Theobald. These, together with the letters in which they had probably been embodied, are not known to have survived. But Theobald's letters to Warburton, from 1729 to 1733, were preserved by the latter and are now in the Folger Library, bound in two large volumes (cs 873). With them in the second volume are transcripts, by an amanuensis but with interlined corrections in Warburton's hand, of half a dozen letters from Warburton to Theobald written in 1734. With these latter is a transcript of the 56 emendations and notes, together with several more additional notes sent later. The whole contents of these two MS volumes are printed (almost certainly from the Folger MS) by John Nichols in Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, II (1817), 189-648.
For a full account of the relations between Theobald and Warburton see R. F. Jones, Lewis Theobald, his Contribution to English Scholarship with some Unpublished Letters (New York, 1919), chapters 5 and 6.
He asserts (p. 17) that he 'found the offensive sheet had been withdrawn, and a new one put into its place, printed so much wider as was necessary to fill the same space, without Sir Thomas's letter.' In the three copies which I have seen (Folger and Huntington) the letter is present (leaf 41Q2, pp. 3743-44) and there is no sign of cancellation. But there is good evidence that the cancellation (of the whole sheet) was carried out and that the Folger and Huntington copies are not three which escaped with the cancellandum in place. Instead I am convinced that in these copies—and probably in all others—the sheet as it now stands is a second cancellans, substituted for the first one (from which the letter was omitted). On p. 3780 (sub Spelman) is a note quoting from Warburton's Shakespeare Preface a statement relating to his quarrel with Hanmer. This statement, the editors say, came to their attention 'since the letter at the end of Dr Joseph Smith's Article was printed off.' And they add that if they had seen it in time, it 'should have been inserted as a marginal note to the aforesaid letter of Sir Thomas Hanmer.' But as the letter now stands in the Smith article the statement has been inserted as a marginal note, to which is added a reference to the note on p. 3780. It seems probable then that Philip Nichols ultimately prevailed with the editors to restore the Hanmer letter. It is from Biog. Brit., p. 3743, that I quote the letter above. It is also printed by John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, v (1812), 588-89, and by Sir Henry Bunbury, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart. (1838), pp. 85-88.
Hanmer printed from the 1725 Pope, but he appears to have intended originally to use the 1733 Theobald edition for this purpose. A set of the latter in the Folger Library has been heavily annotated throughout (except for Titus, Macbeth, and Othello) in his hand as if to prepare it for printer's copy. But he seems to have changed his mind about this and probably transferred these annotations and emendations to a copy of the 1725 Pope.
A good example is Hanmer's reading of Othello, I.i.21:
- Pope and Theob. damn'd in a fair wife
- Hanmer damn'd in a fair phyz
Styan Thirlby, of Jesus College, Cambridge, a friend of Theobald's, contributed a number of notes and emendations to Theobald's edition.
| ||