various readings of copies, and different interpretations of a paffage, feem to be questions that might exercise 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 those 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 inexiftence, 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 explanations tranfcribed from others, if I do not fubjoin any other interpretation, I fuppofe commonly to be right, at least I intend by acquiefcence [D3]

to

to confefs, that I have nothing better to propofe

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 miftaken, 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 fcrupuloufly referved, and hope that I have made my author's meaning acceffible to many, who before were frighted from perufing him, and contributed fomething to the publick, by dif fufing innocent and rational pleasure.

The complete explanation of an author not fyftomatick 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 irrecoverably obliterated; and cuftoms, too minute to attract the notice of law, fuch as modes of drefs, 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 cafily retained or recovered. What can be known will be collected by chance, from the receffes of obscure and

obfolete

obfolete papers, perufed commonly with fome other view. Of this knowledge every man has fome, and none has much; but when an author has engaged the publick attention, those who can add any thing to his illustration, communicate their difcoveries, 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 miftaken, fometimes by fhort remarks, or marginal directions, such as every editor has added at his will, and often by comments more laborious than the matter will seem to deferve; but that which is most difficult is not always most important, and to an editor nothing is a trifle by which his author is obfcured.

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 gave 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. Judgment, like! other faculties, is improved by practice, and its advancement is hindered by fubmiffion to dictatorial decifions, as the memory grows torpid by the ufe 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 [D4]

as

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 I 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 supposed, that in the plays which are condemned there is much to be praised, and in thefe which are praised much to be condemned.

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 keeneft 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 publifhers 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 easy, 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

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 observations of others, I was at laft to try what I could fubftitute for their miflakes, 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 these rarities very communicative. Of the editions which chance or kindness 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 examining the old copies, I foon found that the later publishers, with all their boasts of diligence, fuffered many paffages to ftand unauthorized, 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 hiftory of our language, and the true force of our words, can only be preferved, by keeping the text of authors free

from