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of knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to fatisfy those who know not what to demand, or those who demand by defign what they think impoffible to be done. I have indeed disappointed no opinion more than my own; yet I have endeavoured to perform my task with no flight folicitude. Not a fingle paffage in the whole work has appeared to me corrupt, which I have not attempted to reflore; or obfcure, which I have not endeavoured to illuftrate. In many I have failed like others; and from many, after all my efforts, I have retreated, and confeffed the repulfe. I have not paffed over, with affected fuperiority, what is equally difficult to the reader and to myself, but where I could not inftruct him, have owned my ignorance. I might easily have accumulated a mafs of feeming learning upon easy fcenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that, where nothing was neceffary, nothing has been done, or that, where others have faid enough, I have faid no more.

Notes are often neceffary, but they are neceffary evils. Let him, that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who defires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play from the firft fcene to the laft, with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not ftoop at correction or explanation. When his attention is ftrongly engaged, let it disdain alike to turn afide to the name of Theobald and Pope. Let him read on through brightness

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and obfcurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preferve his comprehenfion of the dialogue and his intereft in the fable. And when the pleafures of novelty have ceafed, let him attempt exactnefs; and read the commentators.

Particular paffages are cleared by notes, but the general effect of the work is weakened. The mind. is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principal fubject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently ftudied.

Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been furveyed; there is a kind of intellectual remoteness neceffary for the comprehenfion of any great work in its full defign and its true proportions; a clofe approach fhews the fmaller niceties, but the beauty of the whole is difcerned no longer.

It is not very grateful to confider how little the fucceffion of editors has added to this authour's power of pleafing. He was read, admired, ftudied, and imitated, while he was yet deformed with all the improprieties which ignorance and neglect could accumulate upon him; while the reading was yet not rectified, nor his allufions understood; yet then did Dryden pronounce" that Shakespeare was the man, "who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets,

had the largest and moft comprehenfive foul. All "the images of nature were fill prefent to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily ; When he defcribes any thing, you more than fee

"it, you feel it too. Thofe who accufe him to "have wanted learning, give him the greater com"mendation: he was naturally learned: he needed "not the fpectacles of books to read nature; he "looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot "fay he is every where alike; were he fo, I fhould "do him injury to compare him with the greatest "of mankind. He is many times flat and infipid; "his comick wit degenerating into clenches, his fe"rious fwelling into bombaft. But he is always

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great, when fome great occafion is prefented to "him: No man can fay, he ever had a fit fubject "for his wit, and did not then raife himself as high "above the reft of poets,

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Quantum lenta folent inter viburna cupreffi."

It is to be lamented, that fuch a writer fhould want a commentary; that his language fhould become obfolete, or his fentiments obfcure. But it is vain to carry wifhes beyond the condition of human things; that which must happen to all, has happened to Shakespeare, by accident and time; and more than has been fuffered by any other writer fince the use of types, has been fuffered by him through his own negligence of fame, or perhaps by that fuperiority of mind, which defpifed its own performances, when it compared them with its powers, and judged those works unworthy to be preferved, which the criticks of following ages were to contend for the fame of restoring and explaining. d 4

Among

Among these candidates of inferiour fame, I am now to stand the judgment of the publick; and wish that I could confidently produce my commentary as equal to the encouragement which I have had the honour of receiving. Every work of this kind is by its nature deficient, and I fhould feel little folicitude about the fentence, were it to be pronounced only by the skilful and the learned.

AND

INCOMPARABLE PAIRE

OF BRETHREN,

WILLIAM

Earle of PEMBROKE, &c. Lord Chamberlaine to the King's most excellent Majeflie.

AND

PHILIP

Earle of MONTGOMERY, &c. Gentleman of his Majesty's Bed-Chamber. Both Knights of the most Noble Order of the Garter, and our fingular good LORDS.

Right Honourable,

W

HILST we ftudy to be thankful in our particular, for the many favors we have received from your L. L. we are falne upon the ill fortune, to mingle two the most divers things that can be, feare, and rafhoeffe; rafhnesse in the enterprize, and feare of the fucceffe. For, when we value the places your H. H. fuftaine, wee cannot but know their dignity greater, than to descend to the reading of these trifles and, while we name them trifles, we have depriv'd ourselves of the Defence of our Dedication. But fince your L. L. have been pleas'd to thinke thefe trifles fomething, heretofore; and have profequuted both them, and their Author living, with fo much favour: we hope, (that they out-living him, and he not having the fate, common

with

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