in date, but which, in warmth of affection and judicious and zealous praise, is worth all that has since appeared on the subject. To leave Jonson, with the impression of this most cordial testimony to the talents and virtues of our great poet on the reader's mind, was death to Steevens; and he had hardly patience to copy the last word of it, before he again burst forth-What you have just seen is mere hypocrisy; I will now show you Jonson's real sentiments: and, accordingly, he brings forward the forgeries of Macklin from some old newspapers, where they had lain covered with dust for nearly half a century, "without entertaining," as Mr. Weber is pleased to assure us, (Introduction, p. xxiv.) "any suspicion of their authenticity"!

I have elsewhere called Steevens the Puck of Commentators; and I know not that I could have described him more graphically. Yet, in this, strict justice, I fear, is hardly done to Puck. Both delighted to mislead; and both enjoyed the fruits of their mischievous activity: but the frank and boisterous laugh, the jolly hoh! hoh! hoh! of the fairy hobgoblin degenerated, in his follower, to a cold and malignant grin, which he retired to his cell to enjoy alone. Steevens was an acute and apprehensive mind, cankered by envy and debased.

With respect to the credulity of this subdolous

spirit, for the sincerity of which the undoubting Mr. Weber so freely vouches, there is not a syllable of truth in it. Mr. Malone assured me, over and over, that Steevens did not believe one word of it. The last conversation which I had with this gentleman, (which took place as we were walking in Piccadilly,) turned upon this very subject, when he repeated his assurances; adding that Steevens, exclusively of other causes, espoused the forgery with the insidious hope of deceiving others. With Mr. Malone, who, as he frankly confesses, was prompt to believe the worst of Jonson, he was completely successful at first: but, before he could avail himself of his triumph, his colleague anticipated his discovery, and, with the assistance of Whalley, and a few well-ascertained facts and dates, exposed, at once, the ignorance and impudence of this malicious fabrication.

Had Mr. Weber contented himself with simply copying his predecessor's calumnies, though he would not have gained much as an author, he might have escaped censure: but this was not enough for his ambition; he saw how little was required to insult a man of integrity, learning and genius, and he aspired to the honour of adding his name to the long list of Jonson's persecutors, and fabricating new charges against him. Could he be suspected of reading the works on which he has

been occasionally employed, it might be thought that he had adopted, with regard to Jonson, as too many others have done, the advice and opinion of the old romancer:

"Hew off his honde, his legge, his theye, his armys: It is the Turk!-though he be sleyn, noon harm is"!

It is but Jonson !

Here, however, Mr. Weber's better Genius forsook him for his additional violation of truth called forth that "Letter" to which I have so often alluded, and levelled the whole of his audacious calumnies in the dust. What Mr. Weber thought of this detection of his falsehood, this exposure of his ignorance, is only known to his inmates. To justify himself was impossible; and signals of distress were therefore thrown out on every side:-

'forthwith to his aid was run'by some of his early friends; one of whom did every thing that kindness could suggest, and prepared a species of apology, (defence there could be none,) which was subsequently inserted in the prefatory matter, and in the notes, to the last edition of Beaumont and Fletcher.

The sequel of this transaction is curious. The whole of Macklin, which occupies so large a part of Mr. Weber's Introduction, together with "the authentic documents," in Mr. Weber's possession,

of the tender friendship of Ford and Shakspeare, and the consequent envy of " the malignant Ben;" -in a word, every syllable of the charge as far as relates to the latter, is flung overboard without ceremony! Instead, however, of regretting his injustice, and expressing somewhat like contrition for the daring falsehood which he had advanced, and the calumnies he had fabricated; the editor returns to the attack, and is permitted by his illadvised friends to look back thirty years, for a proof of Jonson's enmity-not to Ford, but-to Shakspeare!"in that strong passage in the Return from Parnassus" (1602,)—which forms the only blot in Shakspeare's character, as it exhibits him wantonly joining a rabble of obscure actors in persecuting Jonson who was struggling for existence, and who had not offended him even in thought. So besotted is malice!

The note will now be changed, and, with an air of affected commiseration, I shall be askedfor old experience in these perversities has endued me with something like prophetic strain,-why, with the sentiments which I am known to entertain of the commentator, I have " condescended" -blessings on the phrase!-to notice him at length? or why, indeed, at all? I reply in the very words which I once heard Macklin himself make use of:-they cannot be much praised for

their courtesy, it must be admitted; but Macklin

was not courteous.

But say it is

"I'll not answer that:

my humour; is it answered?"

Reproof, indeed, does not always profit the object of it; nor is it expected that it should: for what censor was ever vain or mad enough to suppose that he could reform a detractor without feeling, a scribbler without shame! But the example is not lost on others, and on this consideration alone interference is fully justified. It is not, it never can be, good that petulance should find immunity in its wantonness, or malevolence in its excess; and, setting aside dramatic criticism for the moment, there are other departments of literature, in which the seasonable exposure of the stupendous ears of a maître âne (a Hunt or a Hazlitt, for example) frequently relieves the public from the wearisome braying of a drove of less audacious brutes.

And on what particular ground is Mr. Weber entitled to forbearance? Omitting his calumnies and his falsehoods, his insolence is, at least, as notorious as his ignorance. In the Introduction to Massinger, I spoke of Monck Mason naso adunco, as I was abundantly warranted in doing:

*See Mass. vol. i. p. xcix.