CAPELL, Edward, a gentleman well known by his indefatigable attention to the works of Shakspeare, was a native of the county of Suffolk, and received his education at the school of St Edmund’s Bury. In the dedication of his edition of Shakspeare, in 1768, to the Dųke of Grafton, he observes that “bis father and the grandfather of his grace were friends, and to the patronage of the deceased nobleman he owed the leisure which enabled him to bestow the attention of twenty years on that work.” The office which his grace bestowed on Mr Capell was that of deputy-inspector of the plays, to which a salary was annexed of L.200 a year. As early as the year 1745, Mr Capell, shocked at the licentiousness of Han-mer’s plan, first projected an edition of Shakspeare, of the strictest accuracy, to be collated and published in due time, ex fide codicum. Accordingly, he proceeded to collect and compare the oldest and scarcest copies, noting the original excellencies and defects of the rarest quartos, and distinguishing the improvements or variations of the first, second, and third folios; and after many years labour produced a very beautiful small octavo in ten volumes, with an “Introduction.” There is not, as the authors of a monthly periodical have observed, a more singular literary composition than that “Introduction.” In style and manner it is more obsolete and antique than the age of which he treats. It is Lord Herbert of Cherbury walking the new pavement in all the trappings of romance; but, like Lord Herbert, it displays many valuable qualities accompanying this air of extravagance, much sound sense, and appropriate erudition. In the title-page of “Mr William Shakspeare, his Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies,” it was announced “Whereunto will be added, in some other volumes, notes critical and explanatory, and a body of various readings entire.” “The Introduction” likewise declared that these “notes and various readings” would be accompanied with another work, disclosing the sources from which Shakspeare “drew the greater part of his knowledge in mythological and classical matters, his fable, his history, and even the seeming peculiarities of his language, to which,” says Mr Capell, “we have given for title, The School of Shakspeare.” Nothing surely could be more properly conceived than such designs; nor have we ever met with any thing better grounded on the subject of “the learning of Shakspeare,” than what may be found in the long note to this part of Mr Capell’s Introduction. It is more solid than even the popular “Essay” on this topic. Certain quaintnesses of style, and peculiarities of printing and punctuation, attended the whole of this publication. The outline, however, was correct; and the critic, with unremitting toil, succeeded in his undertaking. But while he was diving into the classics of Caxton, and working his way under ground, like the river Mole, in order to emerge in all his glory,—while he was looking forward to his triumphs, —certain other active spirits went to work upon his plan, and, digging out the promised treasures, laid them prematurely before the public, defeating the effect of our critic’s discoveries by anticipation. Steevens, Malone, Farmer, Percy, Reed, and a whole host of literary ferrets, burrowed into every hole and corner of the warren of modern antiquity, and overran all the country, whose map had been delineated by Edward Capell. Such a contingency nearly staggered the steady and unshaken perseverance of our critic on the very eve of the completion of his labours; and, as his editor informs us—for, unhappily, at the end of near forty years the publication was posthumous, and the critic himself no more—he was almost determined to lay the work wholly aside. By the encouragement of some noble and worthy persons, however, he persevered; and to such their encouragement, and his perseverance, the public was, in 1783, indebted for three large volumes in 4to, under the title of “Notes and various readings of Shakspeare; together with the School of Shakspeare, or Extracts from divers English Books that were in print in the Author’s time; evidently showing from whence his several Fables were taken, and some parcel of his Dialogue. Also farther extracts, which contribute to a due understanding of his Writings, or give a light to the History of his Life, or to the Dramatic History of his Time. By Edward Capell.” Besides the works already mentioned, Mr Capell was the editor of a volume of ancient poems called “Prolusions and the alteration of “Anthony and Cleopatra,” as acted at Drury Lane in 1758. He died on the 24th January 1781.