ing those diverfities which mere reiteration of editions will produce. I collated them all at the beginning, but afterwards used only the first.

Of his notes I have generally retained those which he retained himself in his fecond edition, except when they were confuted by fubfequent annotators, or were too minute to merit prefervation. I have sometimes adopted his restoration of a comma, without inferting the panegyrick in which he celebrated himself for his achievement. The exuberant excrescence of his diction I have often lopped, his triumphant exultations over Pope and Rowe I have oftentimes fuppreffed, and his contemptible oftentation I have frequently concealed; but I have in fome places fhewn him, as he would have shewn himself, for the reader's diverfion, that the inflated emptiness of fome notes may justify or excuse the contraction of the reft.

Theobald, thus weak and ignorant, thus mean and faithlefs, thus petulant and oftentatious, by the good luck of having Pope for his enemy, has escaped, and escaped alone, with reputation, from this undertaking. So willingly does the world fupport those who folicit favour, against those who command reverence; and fo eafily is he praised, whom no man can envy.

Our author fell then into the hands of Sir Thomas Hanmer, the Oxford editor, a man, in my opinion, eminently qualified by nature for fuch ftudies. He had, what is the first requifite to emendatory criticism, that intuition by which the poet's intention is immediately difcovered, and that dexterity of intellect which dispatches its work by the eafieft means. He had undoubtedly read much; his acquaintance with customs, opinions, and traditions, feems to have been large; and he is often learned without fhew. He feldom paffes what he does not understand, without an attempt to find or to make a meaning, and fometimes haftily makes what a little more attention would have found. He is folicitous to reduce to grammar, what he could not be fure that his author intended to be grammatical. Shakespeare regarded more the series of ideas, than of words; and his language, not being defigned for the reader's desk, was all that he defired it to be, if it conveyed his meaning to the audience.

Hanmer's care of the metre has been too violently cenfured. He found the measure reformed in fo many paffages, by the filent labours of some editors, with the filent acquiefcence of the reft, that he thought himself allowed to extend a little further the licenfe, which has already been carried fo far without reprehenfion; and of his corrections in general, it must be confeffed, that they are often juft, and made commonly with the leaft poffible violation of the text.

But, by inserting his emendations, whether invented or borrowed, into the page, without any notice of vary ing copies, he has appropriated the labour of his prede ceffors, and made his own edition of little authority. His confidence indeed, both in himself and others, was too great; he fuppofes all to be right that was done by Pope and Theobald; he seems not to suspect a critick of fallibility, and it was but reafonable that he should claim what he fo liberally granted.

As he never writes without careful inquiry and diligent confideration, I have received all his notes, and believe that every reader will with for more.

Of the last editor it is more difficult to speak. Refpect is due to high place, tenderness to living repuation, and veneration to genius and learning; but he cannot be juftly offended at that liberty of which he has himself fo frequently given an example, nor very folicitous what is thought of notes, which he ought never to have confidered as part of his ferious employments, and which, I fuppofe, fince the ardor of compofition is remitted, he no longer numbers among his happy effufions.

The original and predominant error of his commentary is acquiefcence in his firft thoughts; that precipitation which is produced by confcioufnefs of quick difcernment; and that confidence which presumes to do, by furveying the furface, what labour only can perform, by penetrating to the bottom. His notes exhibit fometimes perverfe interpretations, and fometimes improbable conjectures; he at one time gives the author more profundity of meaning than the sentence admits, and at another difcovers abfurdities, where the fenfe is plain to every other reader. But his emendations are likewife often happy and juft; and his interpretation of obscure paffages learned and fagacious.

Of his notes, I have commonly rejected thofe, against which the general voice of the public has exclaimed, or which their own incongruity immediately condemns, and which, I fuppofe, the author himself would defire to be forgotten. Of the reft, to part I have given the higheft approbation, by inserting the offered reading in the text; part I have left to the judgment of the reader, as doubtful, though fpecious; and part I have cenfured without referve, but I am fure without bitterness of malice, and, I hope, without wantonnefs of infult.

It is no pleasure to me, in revifing my volumes, to obferve how much paper is wafted in confutation. Whoever confiders the revolutions of learning, and the various queftions of greater or lefs importance, upon which wit and reafon have exercised their powers, muft lament the unfuccefsfulness of inquiry, and the flow advances of truth, when he reflects, that great part of the labour of every writer is only the deftruction of thofe that went before him. The firft care of the builder of a new fyftem, is to demolish the fabricks which are ftanding. The chief defire of him that comments an author, is to fhew how much other commentators have corrupted and obfcured him. The opinions prevalent in one age, as truths above the reach of controversy, are confuted and rejected in another, and rise again to reception in remoter times.. Thus the human mind is kept in motion without progrefs. Thus fometimes truth and error, and fometimes contrarieties of error, take each other's place by reciprocal invafion. The tide of feeming knowledge which is poured over one generation, retires and leaves another naked and barren; the fudden meteors of intelligence, which for a while appear to fhoot their beams into the regions of obfcurity, on a fudden withdraw their luftre, and leave mortals again to grope their way.

Thefe elevations and depreffions of renown, and the contradictions to which all improvers of knowledge muft for ever be expofed, fince they are not escaped by the highest and brightest of mankind, may furely be endured with patience by criticks and annotators, who can rank themselves as the fatellites of their authors. How canft thou beg for life, fays Homer's hero to his captive, when thou knoweft that thou art now to fuffer, only what must another day be suffered by Achilles?

Dr. Warburton had a name fufficient to confer celebrity on those who could exalt themselves into antagonists, and his notes have raised a clamour too loud to be diftinct. His chief affailants are the authors of The Canons of Criticism, and of The Review of Shakespeare's text; of which one ridicules his errors with airy petulance, fuitable enough to the levity of the controversy; the other attacks them with gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to juftice an affaffin or incendiary. The one ftings like a fly, fucks a little blood, takes a gay flutter, and returns for more; the other bites like a viper, and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him. When I think on one, with his confederates, I remember the danger of Coriolanus, who was afraid that girls with fpits, and boys with stones, should flay him in puny battle; when the other croffes my imagination, I remember the prodigy in Macbeth:

A falcon tow'ring in his pride of place,

Was by a moufing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.

Let me however do them juftice. One is a wit, and one a scholar. They have both fhewn acuteness sufficient in the discovery of faults, and have both advanced fome probable interpretations of obfcure paffages; but when they afpire to conjecture and emendation, it appears how falfely we all eftimate our own abilities, and the little which they have been able to perform might have taught them more candour to the endeavours of others.

Before Dr. Warburton's edition, Critical Observations on Shakespeare had been published by Mr. Upton, a man fkilled in languages, and acquainted with books, but who seems to have had no great vigour of genius, or nicety of tafte. Many of his explanations are curious and useful, but he likewife, though he profeffed to oppofe the licentious confidence of editors, and adhere to the old copies, is unable to restrain the rage of emendation,

*It is extraordinary that this gentleman fhould attempt fo voluminous a work, as the Revifal of Shakespeare's text, when he tells us in his preface," he was not fo fortunate as to be furnished with either of the folio editions, much less any of the ancient quartos: and even Sir Thomas Hanmer's performance was known to him only by Dr. Warburton's representa→ tion." FARMER.

though his ardour is ill feconded by his fkill. Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a fuccefsful experiment, fwells into a theorift, and the laborious collator at fome unlucky moment frolicks in conjecture.

Critical, hiftorical, and explanatory Notes have been likewife published upon Shakespeare by Dr. Grey, whose diligent perufal of the old English writers has enabled him to make some ufeful obfervations. What he undertook he has well enough performed, but as he neither attempts judicial nor emendatory criticifm, he employs rather his memory than his fagacity. It were to be wifhed that all would endeavour to imitate his modefty, who have not been able to surpass his knowledge.

I can fay with great fincerity of all my predeceffors, what I hope will hereafter be said of me, that not one has left Shakespeare without improvement, nor is there one to whom I have not been indebted for affiftance and information. Whatever I have taken from them, it was my intention to refer to its original author, and it is certain, that what I have not given to another, I believed when I wrote it to be my own. In some perhaps I have been anticipated; but if I am ever found to encroach upon the remarks of any other commentator, I am willing that the honour, be it more or less, should be transferred to the first claimant, for his right, and his alone, ftands above dispute; the fecond can prove his pretenfions only to himself, nor can himself always diftinguish invention, with fufficient certainty, from recollection.

They have all been treated by me with candour, which they have not been careful of obferving to one another. It is not eafy to discover from what cause the acrimony of a fcholiaft can naturally proceed. The subjects to be difcuffed by him are of very small importance; they involve neither property nor liberty; nor favour the intereft of fect or party. The various readings of copies, and different interpretations of a paffage, seem to be queftions that might exercife the wit, without engaging the paffions. But, whether it be, that small things make mean men proud, and vanity catches fmalk occafions; or that all contrariety of opinion, even in thofe that can defend it no longer, makes proud men angry; there is often found in commentaries a spontaneous ftrain of invective and contempt, more eager and