fure, was occafioned by the pedantry of thofe two monarchs, Elizabeth and James, both great Latinifts. For it is not to be wondered at, if both the court and fchools, equal flatterers of power, fhould adapt themselves to the royal tafte.

But now I am touching on the queftion (which has been fo frequently agitated, yet fo entirely undecided) of his learning and acquaintance with the languages; an additional word or two naturally falls in here upon the genius of our author, as compared with that of Jonfon his contemporary. They are confeffedly the greateft writers our nation could ever boast of in the drama. The firft, we fay, owed all to. his prodigious natural genius; and the other a great deal to his art and learning. This, if attended to, will explain a very remarkable appearance in their writings. Besides thofe wonderful mafter-pieces of art and genius, which each has given us; they are the authors of other works very unworthy of them: but with this difference; that in Jonfon's bad picces we do not difcover one fingle trace of the author of The Fox and Alchymist: but in the wild extravagant notes of Shakespeare you every now and then encounter strains that recognize the divine compofer. This difference may be thus accounted for. Jonfon, as we faid before, owing all his excellence to his art, by which he fometimes ftrained himself to an uncommon pitch, when at other times he unbent and played with his fubject, having nothing then to fupport him, it is no wonder that he wrote fo far beneath himself. But Shakespeare, indebted more largely to nature, than the other to acquired talents, in his moft negligent hours could never fo totally divest himfelf of his genius, but that it would frequently break out with aftonishing force and splen

dor.

As I have never propofed to dilate farther on the character of my author, than was neceflary to explain the nature and ufe of this edition, I fhall proceed to confider him as a genius in poffeffion of an everlasting name. And how great that merit muft be, which could gain it against all the difadvantages of the horrid condition in which he has his therto appeared! Had Homer, or any other admired author, firit ftarted into publick fo maimed and deformed, we cannot determine whether they had not funk for ever under the ignominy of fuch an ill appearance. The mangled condition of Shakespeare has been acknowledged by Mr. Rowe, who published him indeed, but neither corrected his text, nor collated the old copies. This gentleman had abilities, and

fufficient

fufficient knowledge of his author, had but his industry been equal to his talents. The fame mangled condition has been acknowledged too by Mr. Pope, who publifhed him likewife, pretended to have collated the old copies, and yet feldom has corrected the text but to its injury. I congratulate with the manes of our poet, that this gentleman has been fparing in indulging his private fenfe, as he phrafes it; for he, who tampers with an author, whom he does not underftand, muft do it at the expence of his fubject. I have made it evident throughout my remarks, that he has frequently inflicted a wound where he intended a cure. He has acted with regard to our author, as an editor, whom LIPSIUS mentions, did with regard to MARTIAL; Inventus eft nefcio quis Popa, qui non vitia ejus, fed ipfum excidit. He has attacked him like an unhandy flaughterman; and not lopped off the errors, but the poet.

When this is found to be the fact, how abfurd must appear the praifes of fuch an editor? It feems a moot point, whether Mr. Pope has done moft injury to Shakespeare, as his editor and encomiaft; or Mr. Rymer done him service, as his rival and cenfurer. They have both fhewn themselves in an equal impuiffance of fufpecting or amending the corrupted paffages: and though it be neither prudence to cenfure, or commend what one does not understand; yet if a man must do one when he plays the critick, the latter is the more ridiculous office; and by that Shakespeare fuffers most. For the natural veneration which we have for him, makes us apt to fwallow whatever is given us as his, and fet off with encomiums; and hence we quit all fufpicions of depravity: on the contrary, the cenfure of fo divine an author fets us upon his defence; and this produces an exact fcrutiny and examination, which ends in finding out and difcriminating the true from the spurious.

It is not with any fecret pleasure, that I fo frequently animadvert on Mr. Pope as a critick; but there are provocations, which a man can never quite forget. His libels have been thrown out with fo much inveteracy, that, not to dispute whether they should come from a chriflian, they leave it a question whether they could come from a man. I should be loth to doubt, as Quintus Serenus did in a like case:

Sive bomo, feu fimilis turpiffima beftia nobis
Vulnera dente dedit.

The

The indignation, perhaps, for being reprefented 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 leaft, 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,

But to return to my fubject, which now calls upon me to enquire into thofe caufes, to which the depravations of my author originally may be affigned. We are to confider him as a writer, of whom no authentick manuscript was left extant; as a writer, whofe pieces were difperfedly performed on the feveral stages then in being. And it was the euftom of thofe 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 curiofity of the town, who demanded to fee it in print, and the policy of the flagers, who wished to fecrete it within their own walls. Hence, many pieces were taken down in fhort-hand, and imperfectly copied by ear from a representation: others were printed from piece-meal parts furreptitiously obtained from the theatres, uncorrect, and without the poet's knowledge. To fome of thefe caufes we owe the train of blemishes, that deform thofe pieces which ftole 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: because, 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 refembled 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 illuftration. 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 Eneis 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 most 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 ridiculously ridiculed for it by thofe, who either were iniquitously for turning every thing to my difadvantage; or elie 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 these 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 fpecimens interfperfed of the latter kind, as feveral of the emendations were best fupported, and several of the difficulties beft explained, by taking notice of the beauties and defects of the composition 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 pleased to fee it the employment of a masterly pen.

It muft neceffarily happen, as I have formerly obferved, that where the affiftance of manufcripts is wanting to fet an author's meaning right, and rescue him from those errors which have been tranfmitted down through a series of incorrect editions, and a long intervention of time, many paffages must be defperate, and past 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 wifdom, 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 so very referved and cautious, as to interpofe no relief or conjecture, where it manifeftly labours and cries out for affiftance, seems, 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 history.

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

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