The first book ever published about Hamlet was a scathing attack on the way Alexander Pope had edited the play, supplemented with additional point-scoring on the back of errors found elsewhere in the poet’s 1725 edition. This book was Theobald’s Shakespeare Restored, and I came to it with the slightly odd question of whether this volume, highly significant in the tradition of textual editing, had any connection to the stage alongside its devotion to the printed page. Having read it through, I can say that there is only a little, but what little there is, is interesting. Take, for example, the subject of Theobald’s dedication, the actor John Rich, better known for his extraordinary skills as a Harlequin. Given that pantomime was seen as the traditional enemy of such high theatre as Shakespeare’s, this leads to some rather complex witticisms on Theobald’s part. Having mused that pantomime may one day glorify Shakespeare, the lawyer-turned-editor then finds new ground for praise.

I am justified in this Address by another Consideration, which is, That however you may have been a Sinner against SHAKESPEARE, you are not an impenitent one. And as Kind Henry IV erected a Chapel to expiate the Injuries which he had done to his Predecessor, King Richard; so the Town at least say, you intend to appease the Manes of our Poet by erecting a MONUMENT to him.

Yet why Theobald chooses Rich is not really clear. My best hypothesis is that Theobald (as well as desirous of a manager’s patronage) also saw some affinity between himself and the king of pantomime. Both glorify Shakespeare (as an editor or as one of the supporters of the monument in Westminster Abbey) but both operate in an unusual way (Rich as Harlequin, Theobald as a critic of the pre-eminent poet of his day). This is not a strong argument, but it does make a little more sense of the dedication.

Beyond the address to Rich, Theobald dives into the catalogue of Pope’s errors. His reasoning for choosing Hamlet is worth first noting, though.

I can scarce suspect it will be thought, if I begin my Animadversions upon the Tragedy of HAMLET, that I have been partial to myself in picking out this Play, as one more fertile in Errors than any of the rest: On the contrary, I chose it for Reasons quite opposite. It is, perhaps, the best known, and one of the most favourite Plays of our Author: For these thirty years last past, I believe not a Seasons has elapsed, in which it has not been perform’d on the Stage more than once; and, consequently, we might presume it the most purg’d and free from Faults and Obscurity. Yet give me Leave to say, what I am ready to prove, it is not without very gross Corruptions. Nor does it stand by itself for Faults in Mr POPE’s Edition: No, it is a Specimen only of the epidemical Corruption, if I may be allowed to use that Phrase, which runs through all the work.

There is an implicit criticism of actors and of audiences here, who have been unable to discern deficiencies in the text and have thus blithely watched its many performances without purging it. Hence the importance of the editor, who steps in where actors have not trod.

Despite this unappealing start and the frequent mentions the ‘interpolations of the players’ as a source of textual corruption, Theobald actually finds only a tiny number of errors attributable to performers. Indeed, sometimes the stage supports actually certain emendations as they work best in an aural environment, such as the reduplication in “That father lost, lost his”, giving “an Energy and an Elegance, which is much easier to be conceiv’d, than explain’d in Terms.” Elsewhere, a similar argument about euphony is advanced to justify the elision of syllables to make lines metrical that Pope felt compelled to edit into regularity. While the stage may be incapable of refining the text, therefore, it does function as a proving ground for textual scholarship. Such a view of the theatre as a laboratory connects textual criticism to the character studies of the eighteenth century, who also appeal to performance to validate their conclusions about the inner life of Shakespeare’s dramatis personae.

So, with a dedication to Rich, and a clear view of the theatre as both incapable of purging the text and worthy as a laboratory, we find some interest in the little Theobald talks of the stage.