ed. When the diction is entangled, it will be cleared by a paraphrafe or interpretation. When the fenfe is broken by the fuppreffion of part of the fentiment in pleasantry or paffion, the connexion will be supplied. When any forgotten custom is hinted, care will be taken to retrieve and explain it. The meaning affigned to doubtful words will. be fupported by the authorities of other writers, or by parallel paffages of Shakespeare himself.

The obfervation of faults and beauties is one of the duties of an annotator, which fome of ShakeSpeare's editors have attempted, and fome have neglected. For this part of his task, and for this only, was Mr. Pope eminently and indifputably qualified; nor has Dr. Warburton followed him with lefs diligence or lefs fuccefs. But I have never obferved that mankind was much delighted or improved by their afterisks, commas, or double commas; of which the only effect is, that they preclude the pleasure of judging for ourselves, teach the young and ignorant to decide without principles; defeat curiofity and difcernment, by leaving them lefs to difcover; and at laft fhew the opinion of the critick, without the reafons on which it was founded, and without affording any light by which it may be examined.

The editor, though he may lefs delight his own vanity, will probably please his reader more, by fuppofing him equally able with himself to judge of beauties and faults, which require no previous acquifition of remote knowledge. A defcription of the obvious scenes of nature, a representation of general life, a fentiment of reflection or experience,

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a deduction of conclufive arguments, a forcible eruption of effervefcent paffion, are to be confidered as proportionate to common apprehenfion, unaffifted by critical officioufnefs; fince, to convince them, nothing more is requifite than acquaintance with the general ftate of the world, and thofe faculties which he muft almoft bring with him who would read Shakespeare.

But when the beauty arifes from fome adaptation of the fentiment to cuftoms worn out of use, to opinions not univerfally prevalent, or to any accidental or minute particularity, which cannot be fupplied by common understanding, or common obfervation, it is the duty of a commentator to lend his affiftance.

The notice of beauties and faults thus limited, will make no diftinct part of the defign, being reducible to the explanation of obfcure paffages.

The editor does not however intend to preclude himfelf from the comparifon of Shakespeare's fentiments or expreffion with thofe of ancient or modern authors, or from the difplay of any beauty not obvious to the ftudents of poetry; for as he hopes to leave his author better understood, he wishes likewife to procure him more rational approbation.

The former editors have affected to flight their predeceffors: but in this edition all that is valuable will be adopted from every commentator, that pofterity may confider it as including all the reft, and exhibiting whatever is hitherto known of the great father of the English drama.

PREFACE

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SHAKESPEARE.

Published in the Year 1768.

HAT praifes are without reafon lavished on

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the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by thofe, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the herefies of paradox; or thofe, who, being forced by disappointment upon confolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the prefent age refufes, and flatter themselves that the regard, which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time.

Antiquity, like every other quality that attracts the notice of mankind, has undoubtedly votaries that reverence it, not from reafon, but from prejudice. Some feem to admire indifcriminately whatever has been long preferved, without confidering that time has fometimes co operated with chance; all perhaps are more willing to honour

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past than present excellence; and the mind cotemplates genius through the fhades of age, as the eye furveys the fun through artificial opacity. The great contention of criticifm is to find the faults of the moderns, and the beauties of the ancients. While an author is yet living, we eftimate his powers by his worft performance; and when he is dead, we rate them by his best.

To works, however, of which the excellence is not abfolute and definite, but gradual and comparative; to works not raifed upon principles demonftrative and scientifick, but appealing wholly to obfervation and experience, no other teft can be applied than length of duration and continuance of esteem. What mankind have long poffeffed they have often examined and compared; and if they perfift to value the poffeffion, it is because frequent comparisons have confirmed opinion in its favour. As among the works of nature no man can properly call a river deep, or a mountain high, without the knowledge of many mountains, and many rivers; fo, in the productions of genius, nothing can be ftyled excellent till it has been compared with other works of the fame kind. Demonftration immediately dif plays its power, and has nothing to hope or fear from the flux of years; but works tentative and experimental must be eftimated by their proportion to the general and collective ability of man, as it is difcovered in a long fucceffion of endeavours. Of the first building that was raifed, it might be with certainty determined that it was round or fquare; but whether it was fpacious or lofty must have been · referred to time. The Pythagorean fcale of numbers

was at once difcovered to be perfect; but the poems of Homer we yet know not to tranfcend the common limits of human intelligence, but by remarking, that nation after nation, and century after century, has been able to do little more than tranfpofe his incidents, new-name his characters, and paraphrase his fentiments.

The reverence due to writings that have long fubfifted arises therefore not from any credulous confidence in the fuperior wifdom of paft ages, or gloomy perfuafion of the degeneracy of mankind, but is the confequence of acknowledged and indubitable pofitions, that what has been longeft known has been moft confidered, and what is moft confidered is best understood.

The poet, of whofe works I have undertaken the revifion, may now begin to affume the dignity of an ancient, and claim the privilege of eftablished fame and prescriptive veneration. He has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit. Whatever advantages he might once derive from perfonal allufions, local cuftoms, or temporary opinions, have for many years been loft; and every topick of merriment, or motive of forrow, which the modes of artificial life afforded him, now only obfcure the scenes which they once illuminated. The effects of favour and competition are at an end; the tradition of his friendships and his enmities has perished; his works fupport no opinion with arguments, nor supply any faction with invectives; they can neither indulge vanity, nor gratify malignity; but are read without any other reafon than the defire of pleasure, and are therefore praifed only as VOL. IX. pleasure

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