rections, 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 most 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 obfervations, not in proportion to their difference of merit, but because I gave this part of my design 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. Judgement, 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 table book. Some initiation is however neceffary; of all skill, part is infused by precept, and part is obtained by habit; I have therefore fhewn fo much as may enable the candidate of criticifm to discover the rest.

To the end of moft plays, I have added fhort ftrictures, containing a general cenfure of faults, or praife 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,

praised, and in these which are praised much to be condemned.

The part of criticifm in which the whole fucceffion of editors has laboured with the greatest diligence, which has occafioned the moft arrogant oftentation, and excited the keeneft acrimony, is the emendation of corrupted paffages, to which the publick attention having been firft 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 publishers of Shakespeare.

That many paffages have paffed in a ftate of depravation through all the editions is indubitably certain; of these the reftoration 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 muft not be avoided, nor the difficulty refufed.

Of the readings which this emulation of amendment has hitherto produced, fome from the labours of every publisher I have advanced into the text; those 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.

2

Having

Having claffed the obfervations of others, I was at laft to try what I could substitute for their mif takes, 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 boafts 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 thefe 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 thofe very frequent, smoothed the cadence, or regulated the measure; on these I have not exercised the fame 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, as that fome liberties may be easily permitted. But this practice I have not fuffered to proceed far, having reftored the primitive diction wherever it could for any reafon be preferred.

The

The emendations, which comparifon of copies fupplied, I have inferted in the text; fometimes where the improvement was flight, without notice, and fometimes with an account of the reafons of the change.

Conjecture, though it be fometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It has been my settled principle, that the reading of the ancient books is probably true, and therefore is not to be disturbed for the fake of elegance, perfpicuity, or mere improvement of the fenfe. For though much credit is not due to the fidelity, nor any to the judgement of the first publishers, yet they who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read it right, than we who only read it by imagination. But it is evident that they have often made ftrange miftakes by ignorance or negligence, and that therefore fomething may be properly attempted by criticism, keeping the middle way between prefumption and timidity.

Such criticism I have attempted to practife, and where any paffage appeared inextricably perplexed,. have endeavoured to discover how it may be recalled to fenfe, with leaft violence. But my first labour is, always to turn the old text on every fide, and try if there be any interftice, through which light can find its way; nor would Huetius himself condemn me, as refufing the trouble of refearch, for the ambition of alteration. In this modest industry I have not been unfuccefsful. I have refcued many lines

from

from the violations of temerity, and fecured many fcenes from the inroads of correction. I have adopted the Roman fentiment, that it is more honourable to fave a citizen, than to kill an enemy, and have been more careful to protect than to attack.

I have preferved the common diftribution of the plays into acts, though I believe it to be in almost all the plays void of authority. Some of thofe which are divided in the later editions have no divifion in the first folio, and fome that are divided in the folio have no divifion in the preceding copies. The settled mode of the theatre requires four intervals in the play, but few, if any, of our authour's compofitions can be properly diftributed in that manner. An act is fo much of the drama as paffes without intervention of time or change of place. A pause makes a new act. In every real, and therefore in every imitative action, the intervals may be more or fewer, the reftriction of five acts being accidental and arbitrary. This Shakespeare knew, and this he practifed; his plays were written, and at first printed in one unbroken continuity, and ought now to be exhibited with short paufes, interpofed as often as the fcene is changed, or any confiderable time is required to pafs. This method would at once quell a thousand abfurdities.

In restoring the authour's works to their integrity, I have confidered the punctuation as wholly in my power; for what could be their care of colons and commas, who corrupted words and fentences. Whatever could be done by adjusting points is therefore

filently