piling Grammars and Dictionaries, endeavour, with all their Influence, to ftop the Licence of Tranflatours, whofe Idienefs and Ignorance, if it be suffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a Dialect of France.

If the Changes that we fear be thus irrefiftible what remains but to acquiefce with Silence, as in the other infurmountable Diftreffes of Humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by Care, though Death cannot be ultimately defeated: Tongues, like Governments, have a natural Tendency to Degeneration; we have long preferved our Conftitution, let us make fome Struggles for our Language.

The

In Hope of giving Longevity to that which its own Nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this Book, the Labour of Years, to the Honour of my Country, that we may no longer yield the Palm of Philology to the Nations of the Continent. chief Glory of every People arifes from its Authours! Whether I fhall add any Thing by my own Writings to the Reputation of English Literature, must be left to Time: Much of my Life has been loft under the Preffures of Difeafe; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in Provifion for the Day that was paffing over me; but I fhall not think my Employment useless or ignoble, if by my Affiftance foreign Nations, and diftant Ages, gain Access to the Propagators of Knowledge, and understand the Teachers of Truth; if my Labours afford Light to the Repofitories of Science, and add Celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton and to Boyle.

When I am animated by this With I look with Pleasure on my Book, however defective, and de liver it to the World with the Spirit of a Man that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately be

come

come popular, I have not promised to myself: A few wild Blunders, and rifible Abfurdities, from which no Work of fuch Multiplicity was ever free, may for a Time furnish Folly with Laughter, and harden Ignorance into Contempt; but ufeful Diligence will at last prevail, and there never can be wanting fome who diftinguish Defert; who will confider that no Dictionary of a living Tongue ever can be perfect, fince, while it is haftening to Publication, fome Words are budding, and fome falling away; that a whole Life cannot be spent upon Syntax and Etymology; and that even a whole Life would not be fufficient, that he, whofe Defign includes whatever Language can exprefs, muft often fpeak of what he does not underftand; that a Writer will fometimes be hurried by Eagerness to the End, and fometimes faint with Wearinefs under a Tafk, which Scaliger compares to the Labours of the Anvil and the Mine, that whatis obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always prefent, that fudden Fits of Inadvertency will furprife Vigilance, flight Avocations will feduce Attention, and cafual Eclipfes of the Mind will darken Learning; and that the Writer fhall often in vain trace his Memory, at the Moment of Need, for that which Yefterday he knew with intuitive Readiness, and which will come un called into his Thoughts To-morrow.

In this Work, when it fhall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewife is performed; and though no Book was ever fpared out of Tenderness to the Authour, and the World is little folicitous to know whence proceeded the Faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify Curiofity to inform it, that the English Dictio nary was written with little Affiftance of the Learned, and without any Patronage of the Great; not in the foft Obfcurities of Retirement, or under the Shelter of academick Bowers, but amidft Inconve

nience and Diftraction, in Sicknefs and in Sorrow: And it may reprefs the Triumph of malignant Criticifm to obferve, that if our Language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an Attempt which no human Powers have hitherto completed. If the Lexicons of ancient Tongues, now immu, tably fixed, and comprifed in a few Volumes, be yet, after the Toil of fucceffive Ages, inadequate and delufive; if the aggregated Knowledge, and cooperating Diligence, of the Italian Academicians, did not fecure them from the Cenfure of Beni; if the embodied Criticks of France, when fifty Years had been spent upon their Work, were obliged to change its Economy, and give their fecond Edition another Form, I may furely be contented without the Praife of Perfection, which, if I could obtain, in this Gloom of Solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my Work till moft of thofe whom I wifhed to pleafe have funk into the Grave, and Succefs and Mifcarriage are empty Sounds: I therefore difmifs it with frigid Tranquility, having little to fear or hope from Cenfure or from Praise.

PRO

PROPOSAL S

FOR PRINTING THE

DRAMATICK WORKS

OF

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

W

Printed in the Year 1756.

HEN the Works of Shakespeare are, after fo many Editions, again offered to the Publick, it will doubtlefs be enquired, why Shakespeare stands in more Need of critical Affiftance than any other of the English Writers, and what are the Deficiencies of the late Attempts, which another Editor may hope to fupply.

The Business of him that republishes an ancient Book is, to correct what is corrupt, and to explain what is obfcure. To have a Text corrupt in many Places, and in many doubtful, is, among the Authours that have written fince the Ufe of Types, almoft peculiar to Shakespeare. Moft Writers, by pub. lishing their own Works, prevent all various Readings, and preclude all conjectural Criticifm. Books indeed are fometimes published after the Death of him who produced them; but they are better fecured from Corruption than thefe unfortunate Compoftions. They fubfift in a fingle Copy, written or

G 4

revised

revised by the Authour; and the Faults of the printed Volume can be only Faults of one Descent.

But of the Works of Shakespeare the Condition has been far different; He fold them, not to be printed, but to be played. They were immediately copied for the Actors, and multiplied by Transcript after Tranfcript, vitiated by the Blunders of the Penman, of changed by the Affectation of the Player; perhaps enlarged to introduce a Jeft, or mutilated to fhorten the Representation; and printed at laft without the Concurrence of the Authour, without the Confent of the Proprietor, from Compilations made by Chance or by Stealth out of the separate Parts written for the Theatre: And thus thruft into the World furreptitiously and haftily, they fuffered another Depravation from the Ignorance and Negligence of the Printers, as every Man who knows the State of the Prefs in that Age will readily conceive.

It is not eafy for Invention to bring together fo many Caufes concurring to vitiate the Text. No other Authour ever gave up his Works to Fortune and Time with fo little Care: No Books could be left in Hands fo likely to injure them, as Plays frequently acted, yet continued in Manufcript: No other Transcribers were likely to be fo little qualified for their Tafk as thofe who copied for the Stage, at a Time when the lower Ranks of the People were univerfally illiterate; No other Editions were made from Fragments fo minutely broken, and fo fortuitously reunited; and in no other Age was the Art of Printing in fuch unfkilful Hands.

With the Caufes of Corruption that make the Revifal of Shakespeare's Dramatick Pieces neceffary, may be enumerated the Caufes of Obfcurity, which may be partly imputed to his Age, and partly to himself.

When a Writer outlives his Contemporaries, and remains almoft the only unforgotten Name of a diftant Time, he is neceffarily obfcure. Every Age has