and his alone, ftands above difpute; the fecond can prove his pretenfions only to himself, nor can himself always distinguish invention, with fufficient certainty, from recollection.

They have all been treated by me with candour, which they have not been careful of obferving to one another. It is not easy to discover from what cause the acrimony of a scholiaft can naturally proceed. The fubjects to be difcuffed by him are of very fmall importance; they involve neither property nor liberty; nor favour the intereft of fect or party. The various readings of copies, and different interpretations of a paffage, feem to be queftions that might exercife the wit, without engaging the paffions. But, whether it be, that Small things make mean men proud, and vanity catches fmall occafions; or that all contrariety of opinion, even in thofe that can defend it no longer, makes proud men angry; there is often found in commentaries a fpontaneous ftrain of invective and contempt, more eager and venomous than is vented by the most furious controvertist in politicks against thofe whom he is hired to defame.

Perhaps the lightness of the matter may conduce to the vehemence of the agency; when the truth to be Investigated is fo near to inexistence, as to escape attention, its bulk is to be enlarged by rage and exclamation: That to which all would be indifferent in its original state, may attract notice when the fate of a name is appended to it. A commentator has indeed great temptations to fupply by turbulence what he wants of dignity, to beat his little gold to a fpacious furface, to work that to foam which no art or diligence can exalt to fpirit.

The notes which I have borrowed or written are either illuftrative, by which difficulties are explained; or judicial, by which faults and beauties are remarked; or emendatory, by which depravations are corrected.

The

The explanations tranfcribed from others, if I do not fubjoin any other interpretation, I fuppofe commonly to be right, at least I intend by acquiefcence to confefs, that I have nothing better to propose.

After the labours of all the editors, I found many paffages which appeared to me likely to obftruct the greater number of readers, and thought it my duty to facilitate their paffage. It is impoffible for an expofitor not to write too little for fome, and too much for others. He can only judge what is neceffary by his own experience; and how long foever he may deliberate, will at laft explain many lines which the learned will think impoffible to be mistaken, and omit many for which the ignorant will want his help. Thefe are cenfures merely relative, and must be quietly endured. I have endeavoured to be neither fuperfluoufly copious, nor fcrupulously reserved, and hope that I have made my authour's meaning acceffible to many who before were frighted from perufing him, and contributed fomething to the publick, by diffufing innocent and rational pleafure.

The complete explanation of an authour not systematick and confequential, but defultory and vagrant, abounding in cafual allufions and light hints, is not to be expected from any fingle fcholiaft. All perfonal reflections, when names are fuppreffed, must be in a few years irrecoverable obliterated; and customs, too minute to attract the notice of law, fuch as modes of dress, formalities of converfation, rules of vifits, difpofition of furniture, and practices of ceremony, which naturally find places in familiar dialogue, are fo fugitive and unfubftantial, that they are not eafily retained or recovered. What can be known, will be collected by chance, from the receffes of obfcure and obfolete papers, perused commonly with fome other view. Of this knowledge every man has fome, and none has much; but when an authour has engaged the publick attention, those

who

who can add any thing to his illustration, communicate their discoveries, and time produces what had eluded diligence.

To time I have been obliged to refign many paffages, which, though I did not understand them, will perhaps hereafter be explained, having, I hope, illuftrated fome, which others have neglected or mistaken, sometimes by short remarks, or marginal directions, fuch as every editor has added at his will, and often by comments more laborious than the matter will feem to deferve; but that which is moft difficult is not always moft important, and to an editor nothing is a trifle by which his authour is obfcured.

gave

The poetical beauties or defects I have not been very diligent to obferve. Some plays have more, and fome fewer judicial obfervations, not in proportion to their difference of merit, but because I this part of my defign to chance and to caprice. The reader, I believe, is feldom pleafed to find his opinion anticipated; it is natural to delight more in what we find or make, than in what we receive. Judgement, like other faculties, is improved by practice, and its advancement is hindered by fubmiffion to dictatorial decifions, as the memory grows torpid by the use of a table book. Some initiation is however neceffary; of all skill, part is infufed by precept, and part is obtained by habit; I have therefore fhewn fo much as may enable the candidate of criticism to discover the rest.

To the end of most plays, I have added short ftrictures, containing a general cenfure of faults, or praise of excellence; in which know not how much I have concurred with the current opinion; but I have not, by any affectation of fingularity, deviated from it. Nothing is minutely and particularly examined, and therefore it is to be fuppofed, that in the plays which are condemned there is much to be praised, and in those which are praised much to be condemned.

The

The part of criticism in which the whole fucceffion of editors has laboured with the greateft diligence, which has occafioned the most arrogant oftentation, and excited the keenest acrimony, is the emendation of corrupted paffages, to which the publick attention having been first drawn by the violence of the contention between Pope and Theobald, has been continued by the perfecution which, with a kind of confpiracy, has been fince raised against all the publishers of ShakeSpeare.

That many paffages have paffed in a state of depravation through all the editions is indubitably certain ; of these the restoration is only to be attempted by collation of copies or fagacity of conjecture. The collator's province is fafe and eafy, the conjecturer's perilous and difficult. Yet as the greater part of the plays are extant only in one copy, the peril muft not be avoided, nor the difficulty refused.

Of the readings which this emulation of amendment has hitherto produced, fome from the labours of every publisher I have advanced into the text; thofe are to be confidered as in my opinion fufficiently fupported; fome I have rejected without mention, as evidently erroneous; fome I have left in the notes without cenfure or approbation, as refting in equipoife between objection and defence; and fome, which feemed fpecious but not right, I have inferted with a fubfequent animadverfion.

Having claffed the obfervations of others, I was at / laft to try what I could fubftitute for their mistakes, and how I could fupply their omiffions. I collated fuch copies as I could procure, and wifhed for more, but have not found the collectors of thefe rarities very communicative. Of the editions which chance or kindnefs put into my hands, I have given an enumeration, that I may not be blamed for neglecting what I had not the power to do.

By

;

By examining the old copies, I foon found that the later publishers, with all their boafts of diligence, suffered many paffages to ftand unauthorised, and contented themselves with Rowe's regulation of the text, even where they knew it to be arbitrary, and with a little confideration might have found it to be wrong. Some of these alterations are only the ejection of a word for one that appeared to him more elegant or more intelligible. These corruptions I have often filently rectified for the history of our language, and the true force of our words, can only be preserved, by keeping the text of authours free from adulteration. Others, and those very frequent, fmoothed the cadence, or regulated the meafure; on these I have not exercised the fame rigour; if only a word was tranfpofed, or a particle inferted or omitted, I have fometimes fuffered the line to ftand; for the inconftancy of the copies is fuch, as that fome liberties may be easily permitted. But this practice I have not fuffered to proceed far, having reftored the primitive diction wherever it could for any reafon be preferred.

The emendations, which comparison of copies fupplied, I have inferted in the text; fometimes where the improvement was flight, without notice, and sometimes with an account of the reasons of the change.

Conjecture, though it be fometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It has been my fettled principle, that the reading of the ancient books is probably true, and therefore is not to be disturbed for the fake of elegance, perfpicuity, or mere improvement of the fenfe. For though much credit is not due to the fidelity, nor any to the judgement of the first publishers, yet they who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read it right, than we who only read it by imagination. But it is evident that they have often made ftrange mistakes by ignorance or negligence, and that therefore fomething may

be