with satisfaction after GALT'S Tragedies.

Mr. Hunt prefixes to his work a dedication to Lord Byron, in which he
assumes a high tone, and talks big of his "_fellow-dignity_" and
independence: what fellow-dignity may mean, we know not; perhaps the
_dignity_ of a _fellow_; but this we will say, that Mr. Hunt is not more
unlucky in his pompous pretension to versification and good language,
than he is in that which he makes, in this dedication, to _proper
spirit_, as he calls it, and _fellow-dignity_; for we never, in so few
lines, saw so many clear marks of the vulgar impatience of a low man,
conscious and ashamed of his wretched vanity, and labouring, with coarse
flippancy, to scramble over the bounds of birth and education, and
fidget himself into the _stout-heartedness_ of being familiar with a
LORD.

OF SHAKESPEARE

[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1816]

_Shakespeare's Himself Again! or the Language of the Poet asserted;
being a full and dispassionate Examen of the Readings and
Interpretations of the several Editors. Comprised in a Series of Notes,
Sixteen Hundred in Number, illustrative of the most difficult Passages
in his Plays_--_to the various editions of which the present Volumes
form a complete and necessary Supplement_. By ANDREW BECKET. 2 vols.
8vo. pp. 730. 1816.

If the dead could be supposed to take any interest in the integrity of
their literary reputation, with what complacency might we not imagine
our great poet to contemplate the labours of the present writer! Two
centuries have passed away since his death--the mind almost sinks under
the reflection that he has been all that while exhibited to us so
"transmographied" by the joint ignorance and malice of printers,
critics, etc., as to be wholly unlike himself. But--_post nubila,
Phoebus!_ Mr. Andrew Becket has at length risen upon the world, and
Shakespeare is about to shine forth in genuine and unclouded glory!

What we have at present is a mere scantling of the great work _in
procinctu_--[Greek: _pidakos ex ieraes oligaelizas_]--sixteen hundred
"restorations," and no more! But if these shall be favourably received,
a complete edition of the poet will speedily follow. Mr. Becket has
taken him to develop; and it is truly surprizing to behold how beautiful
he comes forth as the editor proceeds in unrolling those unseemly and
unnatural rags in which he has hitherto been so disgracefully wrapped:

Tandem aperit vultum, et tectoria