Thanks to the advent of Google Book Search and its much smaller sibling the Internet Archive, we now commonly have access to full text journals that could only be found in well equipped major Universities. Such a one is Shakespeariana, bulletin of the Shakespeare Society of New York during the gilded age. Shakespeariana published such interesting authors as J. Parker Norris, who was responsible for a series on Shakespeare's Editors. I reproduce below Norris' article on Edward Capell, one of the most original, if eccentric, editors of the 18th century. I have added the vignette illustration of which Norris complains.
Edward Capell, from "The Editors of Shakespeare" series by J. Parker Norris in Shakespeariana, Vol. III, Num. XXVI, 1886, pp. 75-80.
Edward Capell was born at Troston, near Bury, in Suffolk, England, June 11, 1713. He was educated at a school in St. Edmund's Bury. His father was a clergyman, and both this gentleman and Capell's grandfather were friends of the Duke of Grafton.
The details concerning his life which have been preserved are very meagre, and not very trustworthy, but he appears to have finished his education at college, though it is not known which one he attended. He knew David Garrick quite well at one time, but afterwards quarrelled with him. He read law, and was called to the bar.
Through the influence of the Duke of Grafton he was subsequently appointed Deputy Inspector of Plays, an office which was created by Act of Parliament in 1736, having for its object the inspection and license of all dramatic compositions before they were allowed to be acted. This position brought him £200 per annum, and, together with the post of Groom of the Privy Chamber (which he also held through his friendship with the Duke of Grafton, who was Lord Chamberlain from 1742 to 1757,) made his income from official sources about £300.
His father was a younger brother, and subsequently was heir to his elder brother, whereby he became the possessor of a considerable estate, which descended to Edward Capell. The latter built a house at Hastings which cost him £5000, although when it was sold after his death it only realized £1300. Here he lived from May until October of every year. He had few friends and passed his time in study. It is related of him that on one occasion when a friend called to see him he requested him to leave his cane in the vestibule for fear of its soiling the carpets! No one dared to stir his fire, snuff his candles, or move the smallest thing in his rooms on pain of his displeasure.
While in London he lived in Essex Court, and his first published work seems to have been an edition of Antony and Cleopatra which appeared in 1758, in 16mo. The title-page is as follows: "Antony and Cleopatra; an historical Play, written by William Shakespeare: fitted for the Stage by abridging only; and now acted, at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, by his Majesty's Servants. No grave upon the earth shall clip in it a pair so famous: p. 99. London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson in the Strand. MDCLVIII."[?] In appearance it much resembles Capell's edition of the poet's works, and it has been erroneously supposed that it was published as a specimen of that edition. This is a mistake however, as it is merely an abridgment of the play for acting purposes. David Garrick supplied the abridgment, and Capell edited the text, though neither of their names are on the title-page, or in fact in any part of the book. There is a poetical dedication signed "Ignoto," and a list of conjectural readings.
Two years afterwards he published in 16 mo: "Prolusions; or, select Pieces of antient Poetry; —compil'd with great Care from their several Originals, and offer'd to the Publick as Specimens of the Integrity that should be found in the Editions of worthy Authors, —in three Parts; containing, I. The notbrowne Mayde; Master Sacksville's Induction; and, Overbury's Wife : II. Edward the third, a Play, thought to be writ by Shakespeare: III. Those excellent didactic Poems, intitl'd—Nosce teipsum, written by Sir John Davis: with a Preface. Impius haec tam culta novalia miles habebat? Barbarus has fegetes ? Virg. Ecl. I. London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson in the Strand. 1760." Both in this work and in his edition of Antony and Cleopatra, above referred to, Capell displayed his love for well-printed books, which was afterwards confirmed by his edition of Shakespeare. In typographical appearance they are models of neatness, and the paper on which they were printed is of excellent quality for the time when they appeared. At the end of each he gives a list of the editions he consulted in their preparation, and lists of various and conjectural readings.
Capell accumulated a very valuable library, containing many of the Quarto editions of Shakespeare, which are now literally worth far more than their weight in gold, besides many works of old English literature which he made excellent use of, and which will be referred to further on. His books and MSS. were left by his will to Trinity College, England, and form part of that valuable collection, which afforded such great help to the editors of the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare.
He died January 24, 1781, and was buried at Farnham, All Saints, Suffolk.
As far back as 1745 he commended the preparation of his edition of Shakespeare, and it is related of him that he copied all of the poet's plays in his own handwriting no less than ten times! In September, 1760, Volume II of his edition was sent to press, and was followed by Volumes VIII, IV, IX, I, VI, and VII, in the order given; and the latter volume was completed in August, 1765. It is not known when Volumes I, III, and V were printed, as none of these volumes are dated, and Capell only mentions the time that the former ones were printed. At the end of volume X, however, the date 1768 is given. It will be noticed that this singular man, who apparently could do nothing in the same manner as other people, followed no system in the sequence of the printing of his volumes: for certainly the usual manner would have been to have had Volume III printed after Volume II, and to have followed regularly to the end. As before stated, none of the title pages of the volumes bear any date, but it is believed that the whole work was published during 1767 and 1768, and Capell received three hundred pounds for it. The book appeared in ten volumes duodecimo, very neatly printed on paper that was good for that day. The first title-page of Volume I is as follows : "Mr William Shakespeare his Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, set out by himself in quarto, or by his Players, his Fellows in folio, and now faithfully republish'd from those Editions in ten Volumes octavo ; with an Introduction: Whereunto will be added, in some other Volumes, Notes, critical and explanatory, and a Body of Various Readings entire. Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit, et omnies Proestinxit, stellas exortus uti aethereus Sol. Lucr. Lib. 3. 1. 1056. London: Printed by Dryden Leach, for J. and R. Tonson in the Strand." There is also a second title page in Volume I, after the introductory matter which reads thus: "The Works of Shakespeare, Volume the first; containing The Tempest, The two Gentlemen of Verona, The merry Wives of Windsor. London : Printed for J. and R. Tonson in the Strand." Similar title pages, with the names of the plays that are contained in each volume, are in all of them, but only in the first volume does the title page first given above appear.
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The "wretched vignette" referred to by Norris. |
There is no portrait in the usual place opposite the title page, Capell could not do anything so like ordinary mortals' practice, so he relegated the poet's picture to the end of the Introduction, p. 74, where there is given a wretched vignette copy of the Chandos portrait, by I. Miller.
The work is dedicated to the Duke of Grafton, and the dedication is dated "Essex Court, in the Temple, Nov. 9, 1767," and signed "Edward Capell." Nowhere else does his name appear in the book. The introduction follows, and consists of seventy-four closely printed pages. In this Capell first discusses the Quarto editions, their merits and defects, the First Folio, and the editors who preceded him : Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton and Dr. Johnson. Capell discriminates well between those Quartos which " have much resemblance to those in the folio" and those which were "first drafts or else imperfect and stolen copies." He says:—
Let it then be granted, that these quarto's are the Poet's own copies, however they were come by; hastily written first, and issuing from presses most of them as corrupt and licentious as can any where be produc'd, and not overseen by himself, nor by any of his friends: And there can be no stronger reason for subscribing to any opinion, than may be drawn in favour of this from the condition of all the other plays that were first printed in the folio : for, in method of publication, they have the greatest likeness possible to those which preceded them, and carry all the same marks of haste and negligence; yet the genuineness of the latter is attested by those who publish'd them, and no proof brought to invalidate their testimony. If it be still ask'd, what then becomes of the accusation brought against the quarto's by the player editors, the answer is not so far off as may perhaps be expected: It may be true that they were 'stolen;' but stolen from the Author's copies, by transcribers who found means to get at them : and, 'maim'd' they must needs be, in respect of their many alterations after the first performance : And who knows, if the difference that is betwen them, in some of the plays that are common to them both, has not been studiously heighten'd by the player editors,—who had the means in their power, being masters of all the alterations—to give at once a greater currency to their own lame edition, and support the charge which they bring against the quarto's? this, at least, is a probable opinion, and no bad way of accounting for those differences.
The above passage is printed verbatim from Capell's "Introduction," and is a fair specimen of his style and punctuation at its best. It was turgid in the extreme, and it is often necessary to read his sentences two or three times to fully understand what he means. Dr. Johnson said of him: "If the man would have come to me, I would have endeavoured to endow his purposes with words, for as it is he doth gabble monstrously." W. N. Lettsom says: "His style may be. fairly described by parodying Johnson's panegyric on Addison. Whoever wishes to attain an English style uncouth without simplicity, obscure without conciseness, and slovenly without ease, must give his nights and days to the Notes of Capell."
With all his defects of style, however, Capell had a better idea of the proper duties of an editor of Shakespeare's text than any of his predecessors. After referring to the license of those who had already published editions of the poet, he says :
Which when he had perus'd with no little astonishment, and consider'd the fatal consequences that must inevitably follow the imitation of so much license, he resolv'd himself to be the champion; and to exert to the uttermost such abilities as he was master of, to save from ruin an edifice of this dignity, which England must forever glory in. Hereupon he posse'd himself of the other modern editions, the folio's, and as many quarto's as could presently be procur'd; and, within a few years after, fortune and industry help'd him to all the rest, six only excepted; adding to them withal twelve more, which the compilers of former tables had no knowledge of. Thus furnish'd, he fell immediately to collation,—which is the first step in works of this nature ; and without it nothing is done to purpose,— first of moderns with moderns, then of moderns with ancients, and afterwards of ancients with others more ancient : 'till, at the last, a ray of light broke forth upon him, by which he hop'd to find his way through the wilderness of these editions into that fair country the Poet's real habitation. He had not proceeded far in his collation, before he saw cause to come to this resolution; —to Stick invariably to the old editions, (that is, the best of them) which hold now the place of manuscripts, no scrap of the Author's writing having the luck to come down to us; and never to depart from them, but in cases where reason, and the uniform practice of men of the greatest note in this art, tell him—they may be quitted; nor yet in those, without notice.
He further tells us that it was his original intention to have given the names of the authors of the emendations he adopted in his text on the same page, but he changed his mind as to this and did not do so, principally because "their number, in some passages makes them a little unsightly ; and the editor professes himself weak enough to like a well-printed book." He does, however, give some various readings at the bottom of the page. His own emendations, which he printed in his text, are in black letter to distinguish them.
At the end of his introduction he gives the origin of the plots of the plays ; and following these are printed several commendatory poems. Then comes a list of the Quarto editions used by him, which is wonderfully complete, only a few being wanting. This is followed by a list of plays ascribed to Shakespeare, a list of the Folios, and of editions of the poems.
Each play has a separate pagination, and they are arranged in the order of the First Folio. Capell used many curious marks of punctuation. In the preface to his Prolusions, above referred to, he gives an explanation of them. Those passages which are ironical he marked with an inverted period. The dash he used in a new form. When it was on a line with the top of letters it had its usual meaning, but when it was at the bottom it pointed out that the speech passed from one person to another, and denoted a change of address. He put it where the change began, and where it ended. A dagger with two crosses meant that the speaker pointed to, or delivered some object, double inverted commas denoted that the speech was an "aside."
Capell's text was the purest that had then appeared, because he founded it on a careful collation of the old copies. He gave the place of each scene more minutely than Pope, and added to the stage directions. Throughout the volumes, at the bottom of the pages, will often be found the words "v. Note." Reference is intended to his Notes and Various Readings of Shakespeare, published in three volumes quarto, in 1779, 1780 and 1781. This work was published in part in 1774, during the author's lifetime, but only a few copies were sold, and the book was withdrawn, to be published later with the other volumes as above stated. Capell by his will directed that the expense of printing them should be borne by his estate, and they appeared after his death. They contain a wealth of illustration of the poet's works, which has been freely used by subsequent editors without giving Capell the credit which was his due.
Volume I. contains a Glossary, excellent for its day; and is followed by Notes and Various Readings. These refer to the volume and page of his edition containing the play commented on, and are written in the same turgid style as the Introduction to his Shakespeare. They are printed in parallel columns, and the words are divided wherever the printer came to the end of a line, without the least regard to syllables. The same thing had been done in the Introduction to his edition, but there the type is smaller and the lines longer, and hence it is not as frequent or as exasperating. O-thers, o-dious, apothe-gms, thr-ough, be-auty, pr-oceed, gr-ound, pl-ease, sou-rce, opi-nion, strang-ers, are a few of these curious divisions, of which, Dr. Furness aptly remarks, " it is really humiliating, after the drollery has worn off, to find how serious is the annoyance which so trifling a matter can create." "And yet," to quote still further Dr. Furness' opinion of these notes "in spite of all this, Capell's notes are worthy of all respect. He had good sense, and his opinions (when we can make them out) are never to be lightly discarded." The notes are divided into "parts," and at the end of each part are given very complete lists of various readings. Had Capell given these at the bottom of the pages of his edition of the poet, he would have added greatly to its value, and would have been entitled to the honor which fell to Jennens, who first adopted this plan.
After his notes on the plays, Capell prints a very brief note on their order ; and an essay on the verse, which is very elaborate. Volume III is entitled "The School of Shakespeare," and contains extracts from books in print during the poet's time, and illustrating the source of the plots of his plays. Extracts are given also from other books which "contribute to a due Understanding of his Writings, or give Light to the History of his Life, or to the dramatic history of his Time," to use the quaint phraseology of its title-page. This volume showed the way to the editors who came after Capell, by which they profited, and drew from the books he called attention to, much of the most valuable illustration of the part to be found in their editions. It is safe to say that this is the most valuable volume of commentary which had been up to that time published in illustration of Shakespeare. Capell has reared a monument in this volume to his learning and knowledge of Elizabethan literature which will never perish. Unfortunately the work is now rare, and seldom met with. Poor Capell went to his grave unappreciated by men of his day, but later generations have made amends for the neglect of his contemporaries. Dr. J. 0. Halliwell-Phillips, who has himself done more than any living man to illustrate the poet he loves so well, dedicated his great folio edition of Shakespeare to Capell, in these words : "I venture, with all humility, to dedicate this work to the memory of the ablest and the most neglected of Shakespearian critics —Edward Capell." And, in imitation of the queer, though learned man he was honoring, Dr. Halliwell-Phillips printed his dedication at the end of the last volume of his edition.
Capell did not give the Poems in his edition, and it is very singular that he omitted them. He had the example of all those editors who had gone before him however. In 1775 an edition of them, founded on that of 1640, was published. It is printed very much in the same style of Capell's Shakespeare, and is often found with it. The title-page reads. " Poems written by Mr. William Shakespeare. Reprinted for Thomas Evans, No. 50, Strand, near York Building." An engraving of the Chandos portrait, by A. Bannerman, is in the centre. It is not known who edited this book, but it has been attributed to Capell. This however is probably an error, for had he been the editor, he would, in all probability, have used the edition of 1609, which is far preferable to that of 1640. J. PARKER NORRIS.
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