University of Virginia Library

William C. Woodson's note on "The 1785 Variorum Shakespeare" in Studies in Bibliography for 1975 (pp. 318-320) while concerned primarily with the text of that edition attempts to trace the progress of editions from 1778 forward to the Furness variorum series. Certain statements made by Professor Woodson need to be corrected. Isaac Reed, "engaged" by Steevens "to edit anew the 1778 Variorum . . . worked quickly and produced in 1785 a ten-volume Shakespeare, with minimal changes in the commentary, and presenting what has been called a 'careless reprint' of the 1778 text." I have no quarrel with Professor Woodson's own conclusions about the place of the 1785 edition in the transmission of Shakespeare's text, but his statements about Reed and, in particular, about the 1785 commentary are another matter. In April 1783, Steevens wrote to Edmond Malone and to Isaac Reed, suggesting that the former edit Shakespeare, and, a few days later, telling the latter that he was turning over his Shakespeare materials to him and wishing him luck with his edition of Shakespeare, which was eventually published at the end of 1785. Now Reed would have had to act very quickly indeed to have prepared the text and commentary for the ten-volume edition in approximately two and a half years. Actually, Steevens handed over a substantial portion of the edition, including some 445 additions, revisions and omissions in his own 1778 notes. Another approximately 470 notes are given over to reductions in the number of parallels Steevens had lavished on passages in

the 1778 edition and to cross-references, by volume and page, to other parts of the same 1785 edition. A few of these 470 notes represent the omission of some bridging remarks, necessary in 1778 but rendered unnecessary by the omission in 1785 of the note or notes of previous editors and commentators. Together, these 900 or more notes comprise the greatest addition to the 1785 Variorum, although a number of people contributed to it. Reed himself contributed some 210 notes and was probably responsible for the reduction of the number of parallels in Steevens's notes and for the many cross-references within the volumes of the edition, although these are all signed "Steevens," Reed's notes being signed "Editor," as he had not allowed his name to appear on the title-page or elsewhere. I should stress the fact that Reed's public contribution to Shakespeare studies up to this time had consisted of but two notes in the 1778 Shakespeare. Reed included some notes by John Monck Mason and a greater number by Joseph Ritson, these latter being attributed to "Remarks," a shortened title of Ritson's attack on the 1778 Shakespeare. Dr. Richard Farmer contributed thirty-nine suggestions, all of them appearing in notes by Steevens, some further indication of the extent of Steevens's involvement in the edition. Peter Whalley also made three observations which found their way into Steevens's notes, as well as contributing a number of notes himself. The 1785 variorum is, therefore, the 1778 edition with additions, in order of number, by Steevens, Malone, Reed, Whalley, the actor John Henderson, and Stephen Weston. But the power behind the editorial throne was Steevens. Indeed, in his brief unsigned Advertisement Reed wrote that the additions to the 1778 Shakespeare "are such as have been supplied by the last Editor [Steevens], and the principal of the living Commentators" [Malone, Farmer, et al.].

Professor Woodson states that the 1785 edition is important because "it marks a new phase in the history of Shakespeare editions and in the lives of the most prominent editors at the turn of the eighteenth century. That the 1785 Variorum exacerbated the quarrel between Steevens and Malone has been recognized before and attributed to the 1785 notes in which Malone challenged Steevens; indeed, it was over difficulties that arose in responding to the notes that Steevens broke off correspondence with Malone. Steevens never bridged the quarrel and undertook his 1793 edition by most accounts to prevent reissue of Malone's 1790 Shakespeare . . . The importance of the 1785 Variorum, then, is that it drew Steevens back into editing, and so indirectly helped in perfecting the variorum concept." The fullest account of the quarrel, if this be not too harsh a word, between Steevens and Malone, is by John Nichols in his Literary Illustrations and is the basis for the account in Prior's life of Malone and other later accounts. Nichols narrates how, after publication of the 1785 edition, Steevens had asked Malone to retain in his, Malone's, forthcoming edition those notes in which Malone had differed with him, and to retain them unchanged. Malone could not, of course, make such a promise, and Steevens declared that all further communication between them on the subject of Shakespeare was therefore at an end (V, 450). But the friction between the two men at this time has been exaggerated, the two large

areas of difference between the two being the respective authority of the first and second Folios and the merits of Shakespeare's poetry.

Malone contributed only five new notes to the 1785 variorum, and Steevens added comments to eight of Malone's 1778 notes, so that the possible fresh disagreements between the two, those which, according to Professor Woodson, "exacerbated the quarrel" between them reside in thirteen notes. Twenty-seven of Malone's notes from his 1780 Supplement to the 1778 Shakespeare and four from his 1783 Second Supplement (privately printed in fifty copies) were reprinted in 1785. In addition to the five new notes (1785, I,144.8; II, 468.5; V,197.9, 256.1, 262.5) Malone added a last sentence, "Since I wrote the above, I have found my conjecture confirmed; for so reads the first folio," to one of his 1783 notes (see 1785, III,488.1). A few of Malone's old notes replaced Steevens's 1778 notes, especially in textual matters, and Steevens added his own comments to some of Malone's old notes. Rarely were the two in agreement, but their differences were expressed in either polite or formal terms; nowhere in their exchanges is there the suggestion of any real acrimony. When Malone in 1780, added a comment to one of Steevens's 1778 notes, Steevens's rejoinder was, "I am not induced by this reasoning to follow the folio" (I,288.6), one of the more severe expressions of disagreement. The most extended exchange between the two comes in their interpretations of Macbeth's "multitudinous seas" (IV,529.9) and is too long to quote here. Another notable exchange comes at that juncture where Hamlet accuses his mother of knowledge of King Hamlet's murder. Malone had quoted two passages from The History of Hamblet which tended to put the Queen in a good light, from which he concluded that "in the drama neither the king or queen make so good a defence. Shakspeare wished to render them as odious as he could, and therefore has not in any part of the play furnished them with even the semblance of an excuse for their conduct." Steevens did not know "in what part of this tragedy the king and queen could have been expected to enter into a vindication of their mutual conduct. The former indeed is rendered contemptible as well as guilty; but for the latter our poet seems to have felt all the tenderness which the ghost recommends to the imitation of her son" (X,420.3). Here, too, as in differences of opinion on less vital aspects of the plays, Steevens treated Malone with respect.

Further, the post-1785 relations between the two men, while they probably were not cordial, were not marked by open hostility. They, and Reed, were in Cambridge, the guests of Dr. Richard Farmer in 1787, and while Reed records only one dinner party attended by both during a fortnight's stay, there is no suggestion of estrangement.[1] On November 23, 1790, Mr. Steevens presented "his best compliments and thanks to Mr. Malone, for his very acceptable present of two sets of Shakespeare. Though Mr. S. has no occasion for a third copy, he begs leave to acknowledge the liberality of Mr. Malone's offer."[2] Steevens had contributed to Malone's 1790 Shakespeare, although

there are few new notes by anybody other than Malone himself. The most notable of Steevens's contributions to Malone's edition is in the prolegomenious matter in Volume I, Part i, and is a long five-page footnote (pp. 359-363) on Thomas Middleton's The Witch, discovered in manuscript by Steevens and privately published in a limited number of copies by Reed in 1778. In addition to this, Steevens contributed three notes elsewhere in the prolegomena, a long one on the Sir Thomas Lucy affair and two shorter ones.[3] Analysis of the 1790 commentary on Macbeth, Steevens's favourite play, reveals that he contributed three new notes, added to three others, and changed one.[4] However, there are no new contributions by him in Measure for Measure, chosen at random for collation with the 1785 edition, so that only complete collation of the editions would reveal exactly how much he contributed to the 1790 edition. But it is obvious that he did not adhere to his vow not to communicate with Malone on matters Shakespearian. Malone, as late as April 23, 1792 when he signed his Letter to the Rev. Richard Farmer, D.D., wrote of Steevens The "most conclusive Essay" referred to is Farmer's Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare, 1767.

Malone's Letter to Farmer was in reply to Joseph Ritson's Cursory Criticisms on Malone's 1790 Shakespeare. Steevens, now on terms of some intimacy with Ritson, was barely mentioned in the Cursory Criticisms and then in commendation of one of his rare emendations (p. 67). Indeed, Ritson had contributed rather extensively to Steevens's 1793 Shakespeare. Malone must have felt himself attacked by both men, possibly even working in conjunction, for on more than one occasion Steevens printed a note by Malone, Ritson's attack on the note, and then his own adverse criticism of Malone's note. Or Steevens would write a comment on a note by Malone which Ritson had

already attacked in his Criticisms. One example: Malone had declared that "tickled" in a line in 2 Henry VI was trisyllabic and the editor of the second folio, "not perceiving this," had emended the line and had been "followed by all the subsequent editors." Ritson disagreed, saying among other things, that the editor of the second folio "has had the use of his ears, which is more than can be said for his Hiberian successor" (p. 71). In his note in 1793, Steevens wrote, "Were Mr. Malone's supposition adopted, the verse would still halt most lamentably. I am therefore content with the emendation of the second folio, a book to which we are all indebted for restorations of our author's metre." This would have been enough, surely, without the gratuitously insulting last sentence: "I am unwilling to publish what no ear, accustomed to harmony, can endure." Some months after Steevens's edition had been out, Malone wrote to Lord Charlemont about the new edition he, Malone, was engaged upon. He complained again of his treatment at Steevens's hands and then wrote, "He shall find me what he has not spirit enough to be himself, an open and, I trust, an honourable adversary. The taking up such a despicable fellow as Ritson by way of co-adjutor, a man for whom he had the most profound contempt (of which I have a testimony under his hand), and who had published the most illiberal and scurrilous invectives against several persons whom he pretends to call his friends [Warton, Percy, and Malone himself] . . . is such an aggravation of all the other paltry acts that he has employed, that I am resolved to give him no quarter."[5] In the Advertisement to his 1793 Shakespeare Steevens wrote, of his failure to reprint Shakespeare's non-dramatic poetry, that this was so "notwithstanding these miscellaneous Poems have derived every possible advantage from the literature and judgment of their only intelligent editor, Mr. Malone, whose implements of criticism, like the ivory rake and golden spade in Prudentius, are on this occasion disgraced by the objects of their culture" (p. vii). Later, he wrote of the last editor, i.e. Malone, "whose attention, diligence, and spirit of enquiry, have far exceeded those of the whole united phalanx of his predecessors" and whose additions to the account of Shakespeare's life, whose attempt to fix the chronology of the plays, and whose account of the ancient English stage he was reprinting (p. xxi). He then rehearsed the differences between himself and Malone, but largely in a light vein, feeling confident that Malone would join "with us in considering no small proportion of our contested readings as a mere game at literary push-pin" (p. xxx). One of the recipients of the fifteen-volume 1793 Shakespeare was, of course, Edmond Malone.

Given the presence of a large number of notes in which he was attacked by Steevens, it is small wonder that Malone should express his anger, even if only privately and to friends. Indeed, as early as August 7, 1792, even before Steevens's Shakespeare was published, having evidently had access to the sheets of Romeo and Juliet or to the actual volume containing it, the penultimate

volume in the edition, Malone wrote to Lord Charlemont, "I find Mr. Steevens has printed 'Romeo and Juliet' from my edition, having taken seventy of eighty of the emendations" (Charlemont MSS, II, 197).

On October 28, 1793, Lord Charlemont wrote to Malone, telling him he had seen, but emphatically not bought, Steevens's edition. "You know," he told his friend, "I always disliked the man, and certainly the manner in which he mentions you has by no means diminished my dislike. In all he says there is but too visibly a feeble, though, thanks to his slender abilities, a fruitless attempt to 'damn with faint praise,' which is certainly the species of satire least creditable to its author" (Charlemont MSS, II, 219). Malone promised Lord Charlemont in a letter of May 27, 1794 that he would "hurl back some of the darts which Steevens has so liberally thrown me" (Charlemont MSS, II, 238). And in several letters to Bishop Percy, the first in October 1793, a few months after publication of the 1793 edition, and the rest after Steevens's death in 1800, Malone catalogued his grievances.[6] Three years later Malone sent Steevens a copy of his Inquiry into the authenticity of the Ireland papers. Steevens's acknowledgement, dated April 1, 1796, reads, "Mr. Stephens presents his best Compliments to Mr. Malone and most sincerely thanks him for his very elegant present, which exhibits one of the mose decisive pieces of criticism, that was ever produced."[7] While it is true, then, that Steevens succeeded in hurting and angering the courteous Malone, it was not until publication of the 1793 Shakespeare that he did so—decidedly not in the 1785 variorum, his, Steevens's, variorum.