the doubtful plays of Shakespeare. Shocked at the inaccuracies
which had crept into Sir Thomas Hanmer's edition of Shakespeare, he
projected an entirely new edition, to be carefully collated with the
original copies. After spending three years in collecting, and comparing
scarce folio and quarto editions, he published his own edition in 10
vols. 8vo (1768), with an introduction written in a style of
extraordinary quaintness, which was afterwards appended to Johnson's and
Steevens's editions. Capell published the first part of his commentary,
which included notes on nine plays with a glossary, in 1774. This he
afterwards recalled, and the publication of the complete work, _Notes
and Various Readings of Shakespeare_ (1779-1783), the third volume of
which bears the title of _The School of Shakespeare_, was completed,
under the superintendence of John Collins, in 1783, two years after the
author's death. It contains the results of his unremitting labour for
thirty years, and throws considerable light on the history of the times
of Shakespeare, as well as on the sources from which he derived his
plots. Collins asserted that Steevens had stolen Capell's notes for his
own edition, the story being that the printers had been bribed to show
Steevens the sheets of Capell's edition while it was passing through the
press. Besides the works already specified, he published an edition of
_Antony and Cleopatra_, adapted for the stage with the help of David
Garrick in 1758. His edition of Shakespeare passed through many editions
(1768, 1771, 1793, 1799, 1803, 1813). Capell died in the Temple on the
24th of February 1781.

CAPELLA, MARTIANUS MINNEUS FELIX, Latin writer, according to Cassiodorus
a native of Madaura in Africa, flourished during the 5th century,
certainly before the year 439. He appears to have practised as a lawyer
at Carthage and to have been in easy circumstances. His curious
encyclopaedic work, entitled _Satyricon_, or _De Nuptiis Philologiae et
Mercurii et de septem Artibus liberalibus libri novem_, is an elaborate
allegory in nine books, written in a mixture of prose and verse, after
the manner of the Menippean satires of Varro. The style is heavy and
involved, loaded with metaphor and bizarre expressions, and verbose to
excess. The first two books contain the allegory proper--the marriage of
Mercury to a nymph named Philologia. The remaining seven books contain
expositions of the seven liberal arts, which then c