of acuteness, learning,
and sympathy which made his edition a landmark in the history of the
text. For many of his troubles, however, Theobald was himself to blame;
he attacked his opponents with unnecessary vehemence, as he expressed
his appreciation of his own work with unnecessary emphasis; he was not
always candid as to what he owed to others, even to the despised edition
of Pope, from which he printed; and he indulged his appetite for
conjecture at times beyond reasonable bounds.

[Page Heading: Theobald and Hanmer]

Theobald's edition was followed in 1744 by that of Sir Thomas Hanmer in
six beautifully printed volumes. This edition is based on that of Pope,
and even goes farther than Pope's in relegating to the foot of the page
passages supposed unworthy. Hanmer performed no collating worth
mentioning, but made some acute conjectures.

The student is apt to be prejudiced against the work of William
Warburton on account of the extravagance of his claims and his
ungenerous treatment of predecessors to whom he was greatly indebted.
"The Genuine Text," he announced, "(collated with all former editions
and then corrected and emended) is here settled: Being restored from the
Blunders of the first editors and the Interpolations of the two Last";
yet he based his text on Theobald's and joined Pope's name with his own
on the title-page. Whatever value belongs to Warburton's edition (1747)
lies in a number of probable conjectural emendations, some of which he
had previously allowed Theobald to use, and in the amusing bombast and
arrogance of many of his notes. The feeble support that lay behind the
pretensions of this editor was exposed by a number of critics such as
John Upton, Zachary Grey, Benjamin Heath, and Thomas Edwards, who did
not issue new editions, but contributed a considerable number of
corrections and interpretations.

The value of Dr. Johnson's edition (1765) does not lie in his
emendations, which are usually, though not always, poor, or in his
collation of older editions, for which he was too indolent, but in the
sturdy common-sense of his interpretations and the consummate skill
frequently shown in paraphrases of obscure passages. His Preface to the
edition was the most weighty general estimate of Shakespeare so far
produced, and remains a valuable piece of criticism. In scientific
treatment of the text, involving full use of all the Quartos and Folios
then accessible, Johnson and his predecessors were