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commentator, I am willing that the honour, be it more or less, should be transferred to the first claimant, for his right, and his alone, ftands above difpute; the f.cond can prove his pretenfions only to himself, nor can himself always diftinguish invention, with fufficient certainty, from recollection. They have all been treated by me with candour, which they have not been careful of observing to one another. It is not easy to discover from what cause the acrimony of a scholiaft can naturally proceed. The subjects to be discussed by him are of very small importance; they involve neither property nor liberty; nor favour the interest of fect or party. The various readings of copies, and differ. nt interpretations of a paffage, seem to be questions that might exercise the wit, without engaging the paffions. But, whether it be, that fmall things make mean men proud, and vanity catches small occafions; or that all contrariety of opinion, even in those 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 vehemency of the agency; when the truth to be investigated is so 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 ftate, 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 surface, to work that to foam which no art or diligence can exalt to spirit.

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 fub→ join 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 passages which appeared to me likely to obstruct the greater number of readers, and thought it my duty to facilitate their passage. 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. These are cenfures merely relative, and must be quietly endured. I have endeavoured to be neither fuperfluously copious, nor fcrupulously reserved, and hope that I have made my author's meaning acceffible to many who before were frighted from perufing him, and contributed something to the publick, by diffusing innocent and rational pleasure.

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 single scholiaft. All personal reflections, when names are fuppreffed, must be in a few years irrecoverably obliterated; and customs, 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 so fugitive and unsubstantial, that they are not easily retained or recovered. What can be known, will be collected by chance, from the receffes of obfcure and obfolete papers, perufed

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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 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, 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 feem to deferve; but that which is moft difficult is not always most important, and to an editor nothing is a trifle by which his authour is obfcured.

The poetical beauties or defects I have not been very diligent to obferve. Some plays have more, and fome fewer judicial observations, 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 pleased 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 use of a tablebook. Some imitation is however neceffary; of all fkill, part is infused by precept, and part is obtained by habit: I have therefore fhewn fo much as may enable the candidate of criticism to discover the reft.

To the end of most plays, I have added short strictures, 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 fuppofed, that in the plays which are condemned there is much to be praised, and in those whose which are praised much to be condemned.

The part of criticism in which the whole fucceffion of editors has laboured with the greatest 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 persecution, which, with a kind of conspiracy, 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 must 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 subfequent animadverfion.

Having claffed the observations of others, I was at last to try what I could substitute for their mistakes, and how I

could fupply their omiffions. I collated fuch copies as I could procure, and wished 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 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. Thefe 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 authours free from adulteration. Others, and those very frequent, fmoothed the cadence, or regulated the measure; on these I have not exercised the same 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, that fome liberties may be eafily permitted. But this practice I have not fuffered to proceed far, having restored the primitive diction wherever it could for any reafon be preferred.

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

Conjecture, though it be sometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It has been my

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