Book Description

Excerpt from Lewis Theobald, His Contribution to English Scholarship: With Some Unpublished Letters The purpose of this dissertation is two-fold: to give a biography of Theobald, and to establish a thesis. With the exception of one or two written before 1728, none of the eighteenth century accounts of the scholar is in any way reliable, especially in matters touching The Dunciad. They all present the same picture of Theobald as is found in the variorum edition of Pope's satire, from which, indeed, the bulk of their information was derived. Early in the nineteenth century John Nichols, in the second volume of Illustrations of Literature, produced a much longer and more accurate sketch of Theobald than had yet appeared, together with the major part of his voluminous correspondence with Warburton. Though Nichols showed signs of appreciating the critic's learning and scholarship, he continued to accept as true many of the baseless charges advanced by Pope. The last century witnessed an amazing contrast in the estimates placed upon Theobald; Shakespearean scholars, almost unanimously, asserted that he was one of Shakespeare's greatest editors, while the biographers and critics of Pope, still continuing to echo the latter's slanders, proclaimed the unfortunate man a dunce. Finally, John Churton Collins, first in an essay called The Porson of Shakespearean Criticism - which might better have been called The Bentley of Shakespearean Criticism - and later in the Dictionary of National Biography clearly established his greatness as a scholar. Yet even Mr. Collins did not attempt to refute many of Pope's accusations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.