venomous than is vented by the moft furious controvertift in politicks against those whom he is hired to defame.

Perhaps the lightness of the matter may conduce to the vehemence of the agency; when the truth to be inveftigated is so near to inexiftence, as to escape attention, its bulk is to be enlarged by rage and exclamation: that to which all would be indifferent in its original state, may attract notice when the fate of a name is appended to it. A commentator has indeed great temptations to fupply by turbulence what he wants of dignity, to beat his little gold to a spacious surface, to work that to foam which no art or diligence can exalt to spirit.

The notes which I have borrowed or written are either illuftrative, by which difficulties are explained; or judicial, by which faults and beauties are remarked or emendatory, by which depravations are corrected.

The explanations transcribed from others, if I do not fubjoin any other interpretation, I fuppofe commonly to be right, at least I intend by acquiefcence to confefs, that I have nothing better to propose.

After the labours of all the editors, I found many paffages which appeared to me likely to obftruct the greaternumber of readers, and thought it my duty to facilitate their paffage. It is impoffible for an expofitor not to write too little for fome, and too much for others. He can only judge what is neceffary by his own experience; and how long foever he may deliberate, will at last explain many lines which the learned will think impoffible to be mistaken, and omit many for which the ignorant will want his help. These are cenfures merely relative, and must be quietly endured. I have endeavoured to be neither fuperfluoufly copious, nor fcrupulously referved, and hope that I have made my author's meaning acceffible to many, who before were frighted from perufing him, and contributed fomething to the publick, by diffufing innocent and rational pleafure.

The complete explanation of an author,not fyftematick and confequential, but defultory and vagrant, abounding in cafual allufions and light hints, is not to be expected from any fingle fcholiaft. All perfonal reflections, when names are fuppreffed, must be in a few years irrecoverably obliterated; and cuftoms, too minute to attract the notice of law, fuch as modes of drefs, formalities of conversation, rules of vifits, difpofition of furniture, and

practices of ceremony, which naturally find places in familiar dialogue, are fo fugitive and unfubftantial, that they are not easily retained or recovered. What can be known, will be collected by chance, from the receffes of obfcure and obfolete papers, perused commonly with fome other view. Of this knowledge every man has fome, and none has much; but when an author has engaged the publick attention, thofe who can add any thing to his illuftration, communicate their discoveries, and time produces what had eluded diligence.

To time I have been obliged to refign many paffages, which, though I did not understand them, will perhaps hereafter be explained, having, I hope, illuftrated fome, which others have neglected or mistaken, sometimes by short remarks, or marginal directions, fuch as every editor has added at his will, and often by comments more laborious than the matter will feem to deferve; but that which is most difficult is not always most important, and to an editor nothing is a trifle by which his author is obfcured.

The poetical beauties or defects I have not been very diligent to observe. Some plays have more, and fome fewer judicial observations, not in proportion to their difference of merit, but because I gave this part of my defign to chance and to caprice. The reader, I believe, is feldom pleased to find his opinion anticipated; it is natural to delight more in what we find or make, than in what we receive. Judgment, like other faculties, is improved by practice, and its advancement is hindered by fubmiffion to dictatorial decifions, as the memory grows torpid by the ufe of a table-book. Some initiation is however neceffary; of all fkill, part is infused by precept, and part is obtained by habit; I have therefore, fhewn fo much as may enable the candidate of criticism to discover the reft.

To the end of moft plays I have added short strictures, containing a general cenfure of faults, or praise of excellence; in which I know not how much I have concurred with the current opinion; but I have not, by any affectation of fingularity, deviated from it. Nothing is minutely and particularly examined, and therefore it is to be fuppofed, that in the plays which are condemned there is much to be praised, and in thefe which are praised much to be condemned.

The part of criticism in which the whole succeffion of editors has laboured with the greateft diligence, which has occafioned the moft arrogant oftentation, and excited the keeneft acrimony, is the emendation of corrupted paffages, to which the publick attention having been first drawn by the violence of the contention be tween Pope and Theobald, has been continued by the perfecution, which, with a kind of confpiracy, has been fince raised against all the publishers of Shakespeare.

That many paffages have paffed in a state of depravation through all the editions, is indubitably certain; of thefe the restoration is only to be attempted by collation of copies, or fagacity of conjecture. The collator's province is fafe and eafy, the conjecturer's perilous and difficult. Yet as the greater part of the plays are extant only in one copy, the peril muft not be avoided, nor the difficulty refufed.

Of the readings which this emulation of amendment has hitherto produced, fome from the labours of every publisher I have advanced into the text; thofe are to be confidered as in my opinion fufficiently fupported ; fome I have rejected without mention, as evidently erroneous; fome I have left in the notes without cenfure or approbation, as refting in equipoife between objection and defence; and fome which feemed fpecious, but not right, I have inferted with a fubfequent animadverfion.

Having claffed the obfervations of others, I was at laft to try what I could fubftitute for their mistakes, and how I could fupply their omiffions. I collated fuch copies as I could procure, and wifhed for more, but have not found the collectors of these rarities very communicative. Of the editions which chance or kindness put into my hands, I have given an enumeration, that I may not be blamed for neglecting what I had not the power to do.

By examining the old copies, I foon found that the later publishers, with all their boasts of diligence, fuffered many paffages to ftand unauthorized, and contented themselves with Rowe's régulation of the text, even where they knew it to be arbitrary, and with a little confideration might have found it to be wrong. Some of these alterations are only the ejection of a word for one that appeared to him more elegant or more intelligible. Thefe corruptions I have often filently rectified; for the hiftory of our language, and the true force of f vol. I.

our words, can only be preserved, by keeping the text of authors free from adulteration. Others, and thofe very frequent, smoothed the cadence, or regulated the measure; on these I have not exercised the same rigour; if only a word was transposed, or a particle inserted or omitted, I have fometimes fuffered the line to stand; for the inconftancy of the copies is fuch, as that some liberties may be eafily permitted. But this practice I have not fuffered to proceed far, having reftored the primitive diction wherever it could for any reafon be preferred.

The emendations, which comparison of copies fupplied, I have inferted in the text; fometimes, where the improvement was flight, without notice, and fometimes with an account of the reasons of the change.

Conjecture, though it be fometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It has been my fettled principle, that the reading of the ancient books is probably true, and therefore is not to be disturbed for the fake of elegance, perfpicuity, or mere improvement of the fenfe. For though much credit is not due to the fidelity, nor any to the judgment of the first publifhers, yet they who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read it right, than we who read it only by imagination. But it is evident that they have often made ftrange miftakes by ignorance or negligence, and that therefore fomething may be properly attempted by criticifm, keeping the middle way between prefumption and timidity.

Such criticism I have attempted to practice, and where any paffage appeared inextricably perplexed, have endeavoured to discover how it may be recalled to sense, with leaft violence. But my firft labour is, always to turn the old text on every fide, and try if there be any Interstice through which light can find its way; nor Would Huetius himself condemn me, as refufing the trouble of research, for the ambition of alteration. In this modeft industry I have not been unsuccessful. I have rescued many lines from the violations of temerity, and fecured many scenes from the inroads of correction, I have adopted the Roman fentiment, that it is more honourable to fave a citizen, thàn to kill an enemy, and have been more careful to protect than to attack.

I have preferved the common diftribution of the plays into acts, though I believe it to be in almost all the plays void of authority. Some of those which are divided in the later editions, have no divifion in the first folio; and fome that are divided in the folio have no divifion in the preceding copies. The fettled mode of the theatre requires four intervals in the play; but few, if any, of our author's compofitions can be properly diftributed in that manner. An act is so much of the drama as paffes without intervention of time, or change of place. A pause makes a new act. In every real, and therefore, in every imitative action, the intervals may be more or fewer, the reftriction of five acts being accidental and arbitrary. This Shakespeare knew, and this he practised; his plays were written, and at first printed in one unbroken continuity, and ought now to be exhibited with fhort pauses, interpofed as often as the scene is changed, or any confiderable time is required to pafs. This method would at once quell a thousand abfurdities.

In reftoring the author's works to their integrity, I have confidered the punctuation as wholly in my power: for what could be their care of colons and commas, who corrupted words and fentences? Whatever could be done by adjufting points, is therefore filently performed, in fome plays with much diligence, in others, with less; it is hard to keep a bufy eye fteadily fixed upon evanefcent atoms, or a difcurfive mind upon evanefcent truth.

The fame liberty has been taken with a few particles, or other words of flight effect. I have fometimes inferted or omitted them without notice. I have done that fometimes, which the other editors have done always, and which indeed the state of the text may fufficiently justify.

The greater part of readers, inftead of blaming us for paffing trifles, will wonder that on mere trifles, fo much labour is expended, with fuch importance of debate, and fuch folemnity of diction. To these I answer with confidence, that they are judging of an art which they do not understand; yet cannot much reproach them with their ignorance, nor promise that they would become in general, by learning criticifm, more useful, happier, or wifer.

As I practifed conjecture more, I learned to truft it lefs; and after I printed a few plays, resolved to infert