We have only farther to observe, that Mr. Bowdler 1ms not exe- 

 cuted his task in any thing of a precise or prudish spirit ; that he 

 has left many things in the text which, to a delicate taste, must still 

 appear coarse and reprehensible : and only effaced those gross 

 indecencies which every one must have felt as blemishes, and by 

 the removal of which no imaginable excellence can be affected. 

 It is comfortable to be able to add, that this purification has 

 been accomplished with surprisingly little loss either of weight 

 or value ; and that the base alloy in the pure metal of Shakspeare 

 has been found to amount to an inconceivably small proportion. 

 It is infinitely to his credit that, with the most luxuriant fancy 

 which ever fell to the lot of a mortal, and with no great restraints 

 from the training or habits of his early life, he is by far the 

 purest of the dramatists of his own or the succeeding age, and 

 has resisted, in a great degree, the corrupting example of his 

 contemporaries. In them, as well as in him, it is indeed remark- 

 able, that the obscenities which occur, are rather offensive than 

 corrupting and seem suggested rather by the misdirected wan- 

 tonness of too lively a fancy, than by a vicious taste, or partiality 

 to profligate indulgence ; while in Dryden and Congreve, the 

 indecency belongs not to the jest, but to the character and action ; 

 and immodest speech is the cold and impudent exponent of licen- 

 tious principles. In the one, it is the fantastic colouring of a 

 coarse and grotesque buffoonery in the other, the shameless 

 speech of rakes, who make a boast of their profligacy. It is owing 

 to this circumstance, perhaps, that it has in general been found easy 

 to extirpate the offensive expressions of our great poet, without 

 any injury to the context, or any visible scar or blank in the compo- 

 sition. They turn out not to be so much cankers in the flowers, 

 as weeds that have sprung up by their side not flaws in the 

 metal, but impurities that have gathered on its surface and that, 

 so far from being missed on their removal, the work generally 

 appears more natural and harmonious without them. We do not 

 pretend to have gone over the whole work with attention or even 

 to have actually collated any considerable part of it : but we have 

 examined three plays of rather a ticklish description Othello, 

 Troilus and Cressida, and Measure for Measure and feel quite 

 assured, from these specimens, that the work has been executed in 

 the spirit, and with the success which we have represented. 



Mr. B. has in general followed the very best text and the work 

 is very neatly printed. We hope, however, that the publishers will 

 soon be encouraged to give us another edition, on a larger letter. * 

 For we rather suspect, from some casual experiments of our own, 

 that few papas will be able to read this, in a winter-evening to their 

 children, without the undramatic aid of spectacles. 



* The Publishers beg to say the hint is taken, and that they are 

 printing a handsome octavo edition^ for the accommodation o/'papas, 

 le the smaller edition may continue to please their younger friends. 



