As I practifed conjecture more, I learned to truft it lefs; and after I had printed a few plays, refolved to infert none of my own readings in the text. Upon this caution I now congratulate myself, for every day encreases my doubt of my emendations. Since I have confined my imagination to the margin, it must not be confidered as very reprehenfible, if I have fuffered it to play fome freaks in its own dominion. There is no danger in conjecture, if it be propofed as conjecture; and while the text remains uninjured, thofe changes may be fafely offered, which are not confidered even by him that offers them as neceffary or fafe. If my readings are of little value, they have not been oftentatioufly difplayed or importunately obtruded. I could have written longer notes, for the art of writing notes is not of difficult attainment. The work is performed, firft by railing at the ftupidity, negligence, ignorance, and afinine tafteleffness 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 feem 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 prosperity of genuine criticism. All this may be done, and perhaps done fometimes without impropriety. But I have always suspected that 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 juftnefs of a happy reftoration ftrikes at once, and the moral precept may be well applied to criticifm, 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 ended in mifcarriage, that caution was forced upon me. I encountered in every page wit struggling with its own fophiftry, and learning confused by the multiplicity of its views. I was forced to cenfure thofe whom I admired, and could not but reflect, while I was difpoffeffing 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 established. Criticks I faw, that other's names efface, And fix their own, with labour, in the place; POPE. 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 fyftem, no principal and axiomatical truth that regulates fubordinate pofitions. His chance of error is renewed at every attempt; an oblique view of the paffage, a flight misapprehenfion 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 state, in which danger is hid under pleasure. The allurements of emendation are scarcely 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 rise 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 exercife of their fagacity, many affiftances, which the editor of Shakespeare is condemned to want. They are employed upon grammatical and fettled languages, whose construction 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. jecture 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. And indeed, where mere con Perhaps I may not be more cenfured for doing wrong, than for doing little; for raifing in the publick expectations, which at laft 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 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 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 easily have accumulated a mass 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 firft fcene to the laft, with utter negliof all his commentators, gence When his fancy is 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 bright nefs and obfcurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preferve his comprehenfion of the dialogue and his intereft 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 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 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. I. [E] cumulate |