the commentary, and various readings, is as yet wanting. The Second Part of King Henry VI. is the only play from that edition, which has been consulted in the course of this work; for as several passages there are arbitrarily omitted, and as no notice is given when other deviations are made from the old copies, it was of little consequence to examine any further. This circumstance is mentioned, lest such accidental coincidences of opinion, as may be discovered hereafter, should be interpreted into plagiarism.

It may occasionally happen, that some of the remarks long ago produced by others, are offered again as recent discoveries. It is, likewise, absolutely impossible to pronounce, with any degree of certainty, whence all the hints, which furnish matter for a commentary, have been collected, as they lay scattered in many books and papers, which were, probably, never read but once, or the particulars which they contain received only in the course of common conversation; nay, what is called plagiarism, is often no more than the result of having thought alike with others on the same subject.

The dispute about the learning of Shakspere being now finally settled, a catalogue is added of those translated authors, whom Mr. Pope has thought proper to call

The classicks of an age that heard of none.

The reader may not be displeased to have the Greek and Roman poets, orators, &c. who had been ren

dered accessible to our author, exposed at one view; especially as the list has received the advantage of being corrected and amplified by the Reverend Dr. Farmer, the substance of whose very decisive pamphlet is interspersed through the notes which are added in this revisal of Dr. Johnson's Shakspere.

To those who have advanced the reputation of our Poet, it has been endeavoured, by Dr. Johnson, in the foregoing preface, impartially to allot their dividend of fame; and it is with great regret that we now add to the catalogue, another, the consequence of whose death will, perhaps, affect not only the works of Shakspere, but of many other writers. Soon after the first appearance of this edition, a disease, rapid in its progress, deprived the world of Mr. JACOB TONSON; a man, whose zeal for the improvement of English literature, and whose liberality to men of learning, gave him a just title to all the honours which men of learning can bestow. To suppose that a person employed in an extensive trade, lived in a state of indifference to loss and gain, would be to conceive a character incredible and romantick; but it may be justly said of Mr. TONSON, that he had enlarged his mind beyond solicitude about petty losses, and refined it from the desire of unreasonable profit. He was willing to admit those with whom he contracted, to the just advantage of their own labours; and had never learned to consider the author as an under-agent to the Bookseller. The wealth which he inherited or acquired, he enjoyed like a man conscious of the dig

His

nity of a profession subservient to learning. domestick life was elegant, and his charity was liberal. His manners were soft, and his conversation delicate: nor is, perhaps, any quality in him more to be censured, than that reserve which confined his acquaintance to a small number, and made his example less useful, as it was less extensive. He was the last commercial name of a family which will be long re membered; and if Horace thought it not improper to convey the Sosi to posterity; if rhetorick suffered no dishonour from Quintilian's dedication to TRYPHO; let it not be thought that we disgrace Shakspere, by appending to his works the name of TONSON.

To this prefatory advertisement I have now subjoined a chapter extracted from the Guls Hornbook (a satirical pamphlet written by Decker in the year 1609), as it affords the reader a more complete idea of the customs peculiar to our ancient theatres, than any other publication which has hitherto fallen in my way. See this performance, page 27.

“ C H A P. VI.

"How a Gallant should behave himself in a Play-House.

"The theater is your poet's Royal Exchange, upon which, their muses (that are now turn'd to merchants) meeting, barter away that light commodity of words for a lighter ware than words, plaudities and the breath

of the great beast, which (like the threatnings of two cowards) vanish all into aire. Plaiers and their factors, who put away the stuffe, and make the best of it they possibly can (as indeed 'tis their parts so to doe) your gallant, your courtier, and your capten, had wont to be the soundest paymasters, and, I thinke, are still the surest chapmen: and these by meanes that their heades are well stockt, deale upon this comical freight by the grosse; when your groundling and gallery commoner buyes his sport by the penny, and, like a hagler, is glad to utter it againe by retailing.

"Sithence then the place is so free in entertainment, allowing a stoole as well to the farmer's sonne as to your Templer: that your stinkard has the selfe same libertie to be there in his tobacco-fumes, which your sweet courtier hath: and that your carman and tinker claime as strong a voice in their suffrage, and sit to give judgment on the plaies' life and death, as well as the proudest Momus among the tribe of criticks; it is fit that hee, whom the most tailors' bils do make room for, when he comes, should not be basely (like a vyoll) cas'd up in a corner.

"Whether, therefore, the gatherers of the publique or private play-house, stand to receive the afternoone's rent, let our gallant (having paid it) presently advance himselfe up to the throne of the stage. I meane not into the lord's roome (which is now but the stage's suburbs). No, those boxes, by the iniquity of custome, conspiracy of waiting-women and gentlemenushers, that there sweat together, and the covetous

sharers,

sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the reare, and much new satten is there dambd by being smothered to death in darknesse. But on the very rushes where the commedy is to daunce, yea and under the state of Cambises himselfe must our feather'd estridge, like a piece of ordnance, be planted valiantly (because impudently) beating downe the mewes and hisses of the opposed rascality.

"For do but cast up a reckoning, what large cummings in are purs'd up by sitting on the stage. First a conspicuous eminence is gotten, by which meanes the best and most essencial parts of a gallant (good cloathes, a proportionable legge, white hand, the Persian locke, and a tollerable beard), are perfectly revealed.

"By sitting on the stage you have a sign'd patent to engrosse the whole commodity of censure; may lawfully presume to be a girder; and stand at the helme to steere the passage of scenes, yet no man shall once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent over-weening coxcombe.

"By sitting on the stage, you may (without trauelling for it) at the very next doore, aske whose play it is: and by that quest of inquiry, the law warrants you to avoid much mistaking: if you know not the author, you may raile against him; and, peradventure, so behave yourselfe, that you may enforce the author to know you.

"By sitting on the stage, if you be a knight, you may happily get you a mistresse: if a meere Fleet-Street gentleman,

Riij