Shakspeare scholar; born at Stepney, London, May 10, 1736; was educated at King’s College, Cambridge; devoted himself to Shakspearean studies, and in 1766 published, in 4 vols. 8vo, “Twenty of the Plays of Shakspeare, being the whole number printed in Quarto during his Lifetime,” etc., which led to his association with Dr. Johnson in an annotated edition published in 1773 under their joint names. Afterward, in conjunction with Isaac Reed, he prepared two new editions (1785 and 1793). His editions remained the standard for the text for almost fifty years. He also assisted in the preparation of the “Biographia Dramatica,” and furnished contributions to Nichols’s “Biographical Anecdotes of Hogarth.” Died at Hampstead, Jan. 22, 1800.

Personal

  If we possessed the secret history of the literary life of George Steevens, it would display an unparalleled series of arch deception and malicious ingenuity. He has been happily characterized by Gifford, as “the Puck of Commentators!” Steevens is a creature so spotted over with literary forgeries and adulterations, that any remarkable one about the time he flourished may be attributed to him. They were the habits of a depraved mind, and there was a darkness in his character many shades deeper than belonged to Puck; even in the playfulness of his invention, there was usually a turn of personal malignity, and the real object was not so much to raise a laugh, as to “grin horribly a ghastly smile,” on the individual. It is more than rumoured, that he carried his ingenious malignity into the privacies of domestic life; and it is to be regretted, that Mr. Nichols, who might have furnished much secret history of this extraordinary literary forger, has, from delicacy, mutilated his collective vigour.

  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.

  George Steevens and Cumberland … would have echoed the praises of the man whom they envied, and then have sent to the newspapers anonymous libels upon him.

  As a critic, he has several qualifications—a scholar, a wit, of ready perceptions, an appetite for work, and not indisposed to those antiquarian pursuits required by the undertaking. He did not, however, intend so wide a range in research as the subject of this Memoir had in view; nor was he of course so successful. Neither did he in a private capacity win the favourable opinion of contemporaries. He had the unhappy art of making enemies. He is represented as sarcastic, ill-natured, jealous, envious, self-sufficient, and while occasionally prone to a kind of generous action, quite as ready to evince bitter malignity for small or fancied offences.

  But Steevens’s irrepressible saturnine humour overshadowed his virtues. In conversation, even with intimates, he recklessly sacrificed truth to cynicism. Dr. Parr, who was well disposed towards him, said he was one of the wisest, most learned, but most spiteful of men. Johnson, the most indulgent of his friends, admitted that he was mischievous, but argued that he would do no man an essential injury. When Lord Mansfield remarked that one could only believe half of what Steevens said, the doctor sagely retorted that no one could tell which half deserved credence.

Edition of Shakespeare

  Steevens is a dangerous guide for such as do not look well about them. His errors are specious; for he was a man of ingenuity: but he was often wantonly mischievous, and delighted to stumble for the mere gratification of dragging unsuspecting innocents into the mire with him. He was, in short, the very Puck of commentators.

  The sources whence they drew their waters were muddy; and STEEVENS, who affected more gayety in his chains than his brothers in the Shakespearian galley, with bitter derision reproached his great coadjutor MALONE, whom he looked on with the evil eye of rivalry for drawing his knowledge from “books too mean to be formally quoted.” The commentators have encumbered the poet, who often has been but a secondary object of their lucubrations; for they not only write notes on Shakespeare, but notes, and bitter ones too, on one another. This commentary has been turned into a gymnasium for the public sports of friendly and of unfriendly wrestlers; where some have been so earnest, that it is evident, that, in measuring a cast, they congratulated themselves in the language of Orlando: “If ever he goes alone again, I’ll never wrestle for prize more.”

  And this then is the text of Shakspere that England has rejoiced in for half a century! These are the labours, whether of correction or of critical opinion, that have made Shakspere “popular.” The critical opinions have ceased, we believe, to have any effect except amongst a few pedantic persons, who fancy that it is cleverer to dispraise than to admire. But the text as corrupted by Steevens is that which is generally put into the hands of the readers of Shakspere. The number of the editions of the text alone of Shakspere printed during the present century is by no means inconsiderable; and of these editions, which are constantly multiplying, there are many thousand copies year by year supplying the large and increasing demand for a knowledge of our greatest poet. With very few exceptions, indeed, all these editions are copies of some edition whose received text is considered as a standard—even the copying of typographical errors. That received text, to use the words of the title-page of what is called the trade edition, is, “From the text of the corrected copies left by the late George Steevens, Esq., and Edmund Malone, Esq.” If we were to suppose, from this title, that Steevens and Malone had agreed together to leave a text for the benefit of posterity, we should be signally deceived. The received text is that produced by Steevens, when he fancied himself “at liberty to restore some apparent meaning to Shakspere’s corrupted lines, and a decent flow to his obstructed versification.” Malone was walking in his own track, that of extreme caution, and an implicit reliance on the very earliest copies. The text of his edition of 1821, though deformed with abundant marks of carelessness, is an honest text, if we admit the principle upon which it is founded. But the text of Steevens, in which the peculiar versification of Shakspere, especially its freedom, its vigour, its variety of pause, its sweetness, its majesty, are sacrificed to what he called “polished versification,” has been received for nearly half a century as the standard text.

  Steevens is one of the most acute and accomplished of Shakespeare’s commentators; but rarely have abilities and acquirements been put to more unfruitful use. To show his ability to suggest “ingenious” readings, he wantonly rejected the obvious significance of the text, and perverted the author’s meaning, or destroyed the integrity of his work. He was witty, and not only launched his shafts at his fellow-commentators, but turned them against his author, and, most intolerable of all, attempted to substitute his own smartness for Shakespeare’s humor. He had an accurate—mechanically accurate—ear, and ruthlessly mutilated, or patched up Shakespeare’s lines to a uniform standard of ten syllables.

  The main business of Steevens’s life was the systematic study and annotation of Shakespeare’s works…. The younger man brought to his task exceptional diligence, method, and antiquarian knowledge of literature. His illustrative quotations from rare contemporary literature were apter and more abundant than any to be met with elsewhere. But his achievement exhibited ingrained defects of taste and temper. He spoke scornfully of the labours of many predecessors, and especially of those of Edward Capell, one of the most capable.

General

  This gentleman, whose memory will be handed down to posterity as long as commentaries on Shakspeare exist, followed his usual mode of conduct with respect to the fabricated manuscripts: he did not boldly enter the lists; but, like a mole, worked in secret; and, when occasion served, stung with the subtlety of a viper.—Whether this gentleman lent his friendly aid to Mr. Malone, in the course of his Inquiry, I will not pretend to say, though I rather conceive, that upon that occasion, the rival commentators, like the two kings of Brentford, “smelt at one nosegay,” and buried their private feelings in the general attempt to crush that which would have proved so many of their labours of non effect had it passed current with the world.

  He was acute and well read in dramatic literature, but prone to literary mystification and deception.