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him not only fail, but fail ridiculously; and when he fucceeds beft, he produces perhaps but one reading of many probable, and he that fuggefts another will always be able to difpute his claims.

It is an unhappy ftate, in which danger is hid under pleasure. The allurements of emendation are fcarcely refiftible. Conjecture has all the joy and all the pride of invention, and he that has once ftarted a happy change, is too much delighted to confider what objections may rife against it.

Yet conjectural criticifm has been of great ufe in the learned world; nor is it my intention to depreciate a study, that has exercised fo many mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age, from the bishop of Aleria to English Bentley. The criticks on ancient authors have, in the exercise of their fagacity, many affiftances, which the editor of Shakespeare is condemned to want. They are employed upon grammatical and fettled languages, whofe conftruction contributes fo much to perfpicuity, that Homer has fewer paffages unintelligible than Chaucer. The words have not only a known regimen, but invariable quantities, which direct and confine the choice. There are commonly more manufcripts than one; and they do not often confpire in the fame mistakes. Yet Scaliger could confefs to Salmafius how little fatisfaction his emendations gave him.' Illudunt nobis conjecturæ noftræ, quarum nos pudet, pofteaquam in meliores codices incidimus. And Lipfius could complain, that criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them, Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc remediis

remediis laboratur.

And indeed, where mere conjecture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and Lipfius, notwithstanding their wonderful fagacity and erudition, are often vague and difputable, like mine or Theobald's.

Perhaps I may not be more cenfured for doing wrong, than for doing little; for raifing in the publick expectations, which at last I have not answered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that 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 difappointed 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 restore: 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 confessed 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 eafily 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

powers of Shakespeare, and who defires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play, from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is 1 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 of Pope. Let him read on through brightnefs and obfcurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his comprehenfion of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when the pleasures 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 di verted from the principal fubject; the reader is weary, he fufpects 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 in its true proportions; a close 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 author'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 acVOL. 1. [E]

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cumulate 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 most comprehenfive foul. All "the images of nature were still present 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 commendation: 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 de. "generating into clenches, his ferious fwelling into "bombaft. But he is always 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 rest 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 muft happen to all, has happened to Shakespeare, by accident and time; and more than has been fuffered by any other writer fince the ufe of types, has been fuffered by him through his own negligence of fame, or perhaps by that fupe

riority

riority of mind, which defpifed its own performances, when it compared them with its powers, and judged those works unworthy to be preserved, which the criticks of following ages were to contend for the fame of restoring and explaining.

Among these candidates of inferior fame, I am now to ftand the judgment of the publick; and with 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.

Of what has been performed in this revifal, an account is given in the following pages by Mr. Steevens, who might have fpoken both of his own diligence and fagacity, in terms of greater felf-approbation, without deviating from modefty or truth.

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