stice, that he 'gabbled monstrously,' but his collation of the quartos
and the First and Second Folios was conducted on more thorough and
scholarly methods than those of any of his predecessors not excepting
Theobald. His industry was untiring, and he is said to have transcribed
the whole of Shakespeare ten times. Capell's edition appeared in ten
small octavo volumes in 1768. He showed himself well versed in
Elizabethan literature in a volume of notes which appeared in 1774, and
in three further volumes, entitled 'Notes, Various Readings, and the
School of Shakespeare,' which were not published till 1783, two years
after his death. The last volume, 'The School of Shakespeare,' consisted
of 'authentic extracts from divers English books that were in print in
that author's time,' to which was appended 'Notitia Dramatica; or, Tables
of Ancient Plays (from their beginning to the Restoration of Charles
II).'

George Steevens, 1736-1800.

George Steevens, whose saturnine humour involved him in a lifelong series
of literary quarrels with rival students of Shakespeare, made invaluable
contributions to Shakespearean study. In 1766 he reprinted twenty of the
plays from the quartos. Soon afterwards he revised Johnson's edition
without much assistance from the Doctor, and his revision, which embodied
numerous improvements, appeared in ten volumes in 1773. It was long
regarded as the standard version. Steevens's antiquarian knowledge alike
of Elizabethan history and literature was greater than that of any
previous editor; his citations of parallel passages from the writings of
Shakespeare's contemporaries, in elucidation of obscure words and
phrases, have not been exceeded in number or excelled in aptness by any
of his successors. All commentators of recent times are more deeply
indebted in this department of their labours to Steevens than to any
other critic. But he lacked taste as well as temper, and excluded from
his edition Shakespeare's sonnets and poems, because, he wrote, 'the
strongest Act of Parliament that could be framed would fail to compel
readers into their service.' {320} The second edition of Johnson and
Steevens's version appeared in ten volumes in 1778. The third edition,
published in ten volumes in 1785, was revised by Steevens's friend, Isaac
Reed (1742-1807), a scholar of his own type. The fourth and last
edition, published in Steevens's lifetime, was prepared by himself in
fifteen volumes in