APPENDIX I ROWE'S LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE (Reprinted) Το Nicholas Rowe's edition of Shakespeare's plays, which was the first attempt to reprint after the Folios, was given to the public in 1709. Rowe was himself a dramatist and poet-laureate to Queen Anne. him is due the arrangement of the plays into scenes and acts, followed ever since by editors, also the list of dramatis persone before the plays. Nor is this all that modern criticism owes to Shakespeare's seventeenth century editor whom they have been careful not to reprint but from whom they have not scrupled to copy as original the really excellent estimate of Shakespeare's genius. I have given Rowe's Life in full. It is dedicated to the Duke of Somerset in a sort of farewell to the practice of original composition. In this epistle Rowe says: Tho' it be high time to disclaim those Studies, with which I have amused my self and other People; yet I could not take leave of an Art I have long loved, without commending the best of our Poets to the Protection of the best Patron. I have sometimes had the Honour to hear Your Grace express the particular Pleasure you have taken in that Greatness of Thought, those natural Images, those Passions finely touched and that beautiful Expression which is every where to be met with in Shakespear. And that he may still have the Honour to entertain Your Grace, I have taken some Care to redeem him from the Injuries of Former Impressions. I must not pretend to have restored this Work to the Exactness of the Author's Original Manuscripts: Those are lost, or at least, are gone beyond any Inquiry I could make; so that there was nothing left, but to compare the several Editions, and give the true Reading as well as I could from thence. Such as it is, it is the best Present of English Poetry I am capable of making Your Grace. And I believe I shall be thought no unjust Disposer of this the Author's Estate in Wit, by humbly Offering it where he would have been Proud to have Bequeth'd it... Your Grace's Most Obliged, Most Devoted and Obedient Humble Servant N. ROWE. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE ETC. OF MR. WILLIAM SHAKSPEAR It seems to be a kind of Respect due to the Memory of Excellent Men, especially of those whom their Wit |