Lewis Theobald,
DRAMATIST AND CRITIC,
Was born at Sittingbourne, and educated for the law, which, however, he early abandoned for literature. His first production was a tragedy entitled "Electra," which appeared in 1714. He established a paper called The Censor, in which his criticism of some eminent wits provoked their resentment, and caused Pope to include him in the heroes of the Dunciad. In 1726 he published a piece entitled "Shakspeare Restored, or specimens of Blunders committed in Pope's Edition of this Poet." This did not, of course, tend to decrease the animosity of the great satirist towards him. He was the author of several dramatic pieces, and a Life of Sir Walter Raleigh; but the work by which he is now principally known is his edition of Shakespeare, edited with great pains and ingenuity, and published in 1733. He subsequently commenced an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, but this work was arrested by his death in 1744.
[See "Cibber's Lives," "Biographia Dramatica."]