notes is not of difficult attainment. The work is perform_ ed, first by railing at the ftupidity, negligence, ignorance, and afinine tasteleffness of the former editors, and fhewing, from all that goes before and all that follows, the inelegance and abfurdity of the old reading; then by propofing fomething, which to fuperficial readers would seem fpecious, but which the editor rejects with indignation; then by producing the true reading, with a long paraphrafe, and concluding with loud acclamations on the discovery, and a fober wish for the advancement and profperity of genuine criticism. All this may be done, and perhaps done fometimes without impropriety. But I have always fufpected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without fo much labour appear to be right. The juftness of a happy restoration ftrikes at once, and the moral precept may be well applied to criticism, quod dubitas ne feceris. To dread the fhore which he fees fpread with wrecks, is natural to the failor. I had before my eye, fo many critical adventures ending in mifcarriage, that caution was forced upon me. I encountered in every page wit struggling with its own fophiftry, and learning confuled by the multiplicity of its views. I was forced to cenfure those whom I admired, and could not but reflect, while I was difpoffefling their emendations, how foon the fame fate might happen to my own, and how many of the readings which I have corrected may be by fome other editor defended and eftablished. Criticks I faw, that other's names efface, POPE. That That a conjectural critick fhould often be mistaken, cannot be wonderful, either to others or himself, if it be confidered, that in his art there is no system, no principal and axiomatical truth that regulates fubordinate positions. His chance of error is renewed at every attempt; an oblique view of the paffage, a flight mifapprehenfion of a phrafe, a cafual inattention to the parts connected, is fufficient to make 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 dispute 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 criticism has been of great ufe in the learned world; nor is it my intention to depreciate a study, that has exercised so 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 exercife of their fagacity, many affistances, which the editor of Shakspeare is condemned to want. They are employed upon grammatical and settled 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 manuscripts 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 And Lipfius could complain, that criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them, Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc 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, what at laft I have not answered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that of knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to fatisfy thofe who know not what to demand, or those who demand by defign what they think impoffible to be done. I have indeed disappointed no opinion more than my own; yet I have endeavoured to perform, my talk 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 obscure, 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 palled 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 easily have accumulated a mafs of feeming learning upon eafy fcenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that where nothing was necessary, nothing has been done, or that, where others have faid enough, I have faid no more. Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him, that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakspeare, and who defires to feel the highest pleasure. that the drama can give, read every play, from the first fcene to the last, with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not ftoop at correction or explanation. When his attention is 9 ftrongly ftrongly engaged, let it difdain 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 preferve 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 paffiges are cleared by notes, but the general effect of the work is weakened. The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principal fubject; the reader is weary, he fufpects not why; and at last throws away the book which he has too diligently studied. Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been furveyed; there is a kind of intellectual remoteness necesfary for the comprehenfion of any great work in its full defign and in its true proportions; a close approach shows the smaller 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 pleasing. He was read, admired, studied, and imitated, while he was yet deformed with all the improprieties which ignorance and neglect could accumulate upon him; while the reading was yet not rectified, nor his allufions understood; yet then did Dryden pronounce, that Shakspeare was the who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive foul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily when he describes 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, man, and and found her there. I cannot fay he is every where alike; were he fo, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and infipid; his comick wit degenerating into clenches, his ferious fwelling into bombaft. But he is always great, when some great occafion is prefented to him: no man can fay, he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets, 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 wishes beyond the condition of human things; that which must happen to all, has happened to Shakspeare, by accident and time; and more than has been fuffered by any other writer fince the use of types, has been fuffered by him through his own negligence of fame, or perhaps by that fuperiority 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 reftoring and explaining. Among these candidates of inferior fame, I am now to ftand the judgment of the publick; and wish 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 G |