The indignation, perhaps, for being represented a blockhead, may be as ftrong in us, as it is in the ladies for a reflexion on their beauties. It is certain, I am indebted to him for fome flagrant civilities; and I fhall willingly devote a part of my life to the honeft endeavour of quitting fcores: with this exception however, that I will not return thofe civilities in his peculiar ftrain, but confine myfelf, at least, to the limits of common decency. I fhall ever think it better to want wit, than to want humanity: and impartial pofterity may, perhaps, be of my opinion.

my

But to return to my fubject, which now calls upon me to enquire into thofe caufes, to which the depravations of author originally may be affigned. We are to confider him as a writer, of whom no authentick manufcript was left extant; as a writer, whofe pieces were difperfedly performed on the feveral ftages then in being. And it was the cuftom of those days for the poets to take a price of the players for the pieces they from time to time furnished; and thereupon it was fuppofed they had no farther right to print them without the confent of the players. As it was the intereft of the companies to keep their plays unpublished, when any one fucceeded, there was a conteft betwixt the curiosity of the town, who demanded to fee it in print, and the policy of the flagers, who wifhed to fecrete it within their own walls. Hence, many pieces were taken down in fhort-hand, and imperfectly copied by ear from a reprefentation; others were printed from piece-meal parts furreptitiously obtained from the theatres, uncorrect, and without the poet's knowledge. To fome of these causes we owe the train of blemishes, that deform thofe pieces which stole fingly into the world in our author's life-time.

There are ftill other reafons, which may be fuppofed to have affected the whole fet. When the players took upon them to publish his works entire, every theatre was ranfacked to fupply the copy; and parts collected, which had gone through as many changes as performers, either from mutilations or additions made to them. Hence we derive many chafms and incoherences in the fenfe and matter. Scenes were frequently tranfpofed, and fhuffled out of their true. place, to humour the caprice, or fuppofed convenience of fome particular actor. Hence much confufion and impropriety has attended, and embarraffed the bufinefs and fable. To thefe obvious caufes of corruption it must be added, that our author has lain under the disadvantage of having his er

rors

rors propagated and multiplied by time: becaufe, for near a century, his works were published from the faulty copies, without the affiftance of any intelligent editor: which has been the cafe likewife of many a claffick writer.

The nature of any diftemper once found has generally been the immediate ftep to a cure. Shakespeare's cafe has in a great measure resembled that of a corrupt claffick; and, confequently, the method of cure was likewife to bear a refemblance. By what means, and with what fuccefs, this cure has been effected on ancient writers, is too well known, and needs no formal illustration. The reputation, confequent on tasks of that nature, invited me to attempt the method here; with this view, the hopes of reftoring to the publick their greatest poet in his original purity: after having fo long lain in a condition that was a difgrace to common fenfe. To this end I have ventured on a labour, that is the first affay of the kind on any modern author whatfoever. For the late edition of Milton by the learned Dr. Bentley is, in the main, a performance of another species. It is plain, it was the intention of that great man rather to correct and pare off the excrefcencies of the Paradife Loft, in the manner that Tucca and Varius were employed to criticife the Æneis of Virgil, than to reftore corrupted paffages. Hence, therefore, may be feen either the iniquity or ignorance of his cenfurers, who, from fome expreffions, would make us believe, the doctor every where gives us his corrections as the original text of the author; whereas the chief turn of his criticifm is plainly to fhew the world, that if Milton did not write as he would have him, he ought to have wrote fo.

I thought proper to premife this obfervation to the readers, as it will fhew that the critick on Shakespeare is of a quite different kind. His genuine text is for the moft part religiously adhered to, and the numerous faults and blemishes, purely his own, are left as they were found. Nothing is altered, but what by the cleareft reafoning can be proved a corruption of the true text; and the alteration, a real restoration of the genuine reading. Nay, fo ftrictly have I ftrove to give the true reading, though fometimes not to the advantage of my author, that I have been ridiculoufly ridiculed for it by thofe, who either were iniquitoufly for turning every thing to my difadvantage; or elfe were totally ignorant of the true duty of an editor.

The

The fcience of criticifm, as far as it affects an editor, feems to be reduced to thefe three claffes; the emendation of corrupt paffages; the explanation of obfcure and difficult ones; and an enquiry into the beauties and defects of compofition. This work is principally confined to the two former parts: though there are fome specimens interspersed of the latter kind, as feveral of the emendations were best supported, and several of the difficulties beft explained, by taking notice of the beauties and defects of the compofition peculiar to this immortal poet. But this was but occafional, and for the fake only of perfecting the two other parts, which were the proper objects of the editor's labour. The third lies open for every willing undertaker: and I fhall be pleafed to fee it the employment of a masterly pen.

It must neceffarily happen, as I have formerly observed, that where the affiftance of manufcripts is wanting to fet an author's meaning right, and refcue him from thofe errors which have been tranfmitted down through a feries of incorrect editions, and a long intervention of time, many paffages must be defperate, and paft a cure; and their true fenfe irretrievable either to care or the fagacity of conjecture. But is there any reafon therefore to fay, that because all cannot be retrieved, all ought to be left defperate? We fhould fhew very little honefty, or wisdom, to play the tyrants with an author's text; to raze, alter, innovate, and overturn, at all adventures, and to the utter detriment of his fenfe and meaning: but to be fo very referved and cautious, as to interpofe no relief or conjecture, where it manifeftly labours and cries out for affistance, feems, on the other hand, an indolent abfurdity.

As there are very few pages in Shakespeare, upon which fome fufpicions of depravity do not reasonably arife; I have thought it my duty in the firft place, by a diligent and laborious collation, to take in the affiftances of all the older copies.

In his hiftorical plays, whenever our English chronicles, and in his tragedies, when Greek or Roman ftory could give any light, no pains have been omitted to fet paffages right, by comparing my author with his originals; for, as I have frequently obferved, he was a clofe and accurate copier where-ever his fable was founded on hiftory.

Where-ever the author's fenfe is clear and difcoverable (though, perchance, low and trivial) I have not by any innovation tampered with his text, out of an oftentation of

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endeavouring to make him fpeak better than the old copies

have done.

Where, through all the former editions, a paffage has laboured under flat nonfenfe and invincible darknefs, if, by the addition or alteration of a letter or two, or a tranfpofition in the pointing, I have reftored to him both fenfe and fentiment; fuch corrections, I am perfuaded, will need no indulgence.

And whenever I have taken a greater latitude and liberty in amending, I have conftantly endeavoured to fupport my corrections and conjectures by parallel paffages and authorities from himself, the fureft means of expounding any author whatsoever. Cette voie d'interpreter un autheur par lui-même eft plus fure que tous les commentaires, fays a very learned French critick.

As to my notes (from which the common and learned readers of our author, I hope, will derive fome fatisfaction) I have endeavoured to give them a variety in fome proportion to their number. Wherever I have ventured at an emendation, a note is conftantly fubjoined to justify and affert the reason of it. Where I only offer a conjecture, and do not disturb the text, I fairly fet forth my grounds for fuch conjecture, and fubmit it to judgment. Some remarks are spent in explaining paffages, where the wit or fatire depends on an obfcure point of history: others, where allufions are to divinity, philofophy, or other branches of science. Some are added to fhew, where there is a sufpicion of our author having borrowed from the ancients: others, to fhew where he is rallying his contemporaries; or where he himself is rallied by them. And fome are neceffarily thrown in, to explain an obfcure and obfolete term, phrafe, or idea. I once intended to have added a complete and copious gloffury; but as I have been importuned, and am prepared to give a correct edition of our author's POEMS, (in which many terms occur that are not to be met with in his plays) I thought a glosary to all Shakespeare's works more proper to attend that volume.

In reforming an infinite number of paffages in the pointing, where the fenfe was before quite loft, I have frequently fubjoined notes to fhew the depraved, and to prove the reformed, pointing: a part of labour in this work which I could very willingly have fpared myself. May it not be objected, why then have you burdened us with these notes? The anfwer is obvious, and, if I miftake not, very ma

terial.

terial. Without fuch notes, thefe paffages in subsequent editions would be liable, through the ignorance of printers and correctors, to fall into the old confufion: whereas, a note on every one hinders all poffible return to depravity; and for ever fecures them in a state of purity and integrity not to be loft or forfeited.

Again, as fome notes have been neceffary to point out the detection of the corrupted text, and eftablish the reftoration of the genuine readings; fome others have been as neceflary for the explanation of paffages obfcure and difficult. To understand the neceflity and ufe of this part of my task, fome particulars of my author's character are previously to be explained. There are obfcurities in him, which are common to him with all poets of the fame fpecies; there are others, the iffue of the times he lived in; and there are others, again, peculiar to himfelf. The nature of comick poetry being entirely fatirical, it bufies itself more in expofing what we call caprice and humour, than vices cognizable to the laws. The English, from the happinefs of a free conftitution, and a turn of mind peculiarly fpeculative and inquifitive, are obferved to produce more humourists, and a greater variety of original characters, than any other people whatfoever: and thefe owing their immediate birth to the peculiar genius of each age, an infinite number of things alluded to, glanced at, and expofed, muft needs become obfcure, as the characters themselves are antiquated and difufed. An editor therefore fhould be well verfed in the history and manners of his author's age, if he aims at doing him a fervice in this respect.

Befides, wit lying moftly in the affemblage of ideas, and in putting thofe together with quicknefs and variety, wherein can be found any refemblance, or congruity, to make up pleafant pictures, and agreeable vifions in the fancy; the writer, who aims at wit, muft of course range far and wide for materials. Now the age in which Shakefpeare lived, having, above all others, a wonderful affection to appear learned, they declined vulgar images, fuch as are immediately fetched from nature, and ranged through the circle of the sciences to fetch their ideas from thence. But as the refemblances of fuch ideas to the fubject must neceffarily lie very much out of the common way, and every piece of wit appear a riddle to the vulgar; this, that should have taught them the forced, quaint, unnatural tract they were in (and induce them to follow a more natural one)

was