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can never be too often repeated, or too conftantly inculcated: And, to engage the reader's due attention to it, hath been one of the principal objects of this edition.

As this fcience (whatever profound philofophers may think) is, to the reft, in things; fo, in words, (whatever fupercilious pedants may talk) every one's mother-tongue is to all other languages. This hath ftill been the fentiment of nature and true wisdom. Hence, the greatest men of antiquity never thought themselves better employed than in cultivating their own country idiom. So Lycurgus did honour to Sparta, in giving the first compleat edition of Homer; and Cicero, to Rome, in correcting the works of Lucretius. Nor do we want examples of the fame good fenfe in modern times, even amidst the cruel inroads that art and fashion have made upon nature and the fimplicity of wisdom. Menage, the greatest name in France for all kinds of philologic learning, prided himself in writing critical notes on their best lyric poet, Malherbe: And our greater Selden, when he thought it might reflect credit on his country, did not disdain even to comment a very ordinary poet, one Michael Drayton. But the English tongue, at this juncture, deferves and demands our particular regard. It hath, by means of the many excellent works of different kinds compofed in it, engaged the notice, and become the ftudy, of almoft every curious and learned foreigner, fo as to be thought even a part of literary accomplishment. This muft needs make it deserving of a critical attention: And its being yet deftitute of a teft or ftandard to apply to, in cafes of doubt or difficulty, fhews how much it wants that attention. For we have neither GRAMMAR nor DICTIONARY, neither chart nor compafs, to guide us through this wide fea of words. And indeed how should we? Since both are to be compofed and finished on the authority of our best established writers. But their

authority can be of little ufe till the text hath been correctly fettled, and the phrafeology critically examined. As, then, by these aids, a Grammar and Dictionary, planned upon the best rules of logic and philofophy, (and none but fuch will deferve the name) are to be procured; the forwarding of this will be a general concern: For, as Quintilian cbferves, "Verborum proprietas ac differentia omnibus, qui " fermonem curæ habent, debet effe communis." By this way, the Italians have brought their tongue to a degree of purity and ftability which no living language ever attained unto before. It is with pleasure I obferve, that these things now begin to be understood amongst ourselves; and that I can acquaint the public, we may foon expect elegant editions of Fletcher and Milton's Paradife Loft from gentlemen of diftinguished abilities and learning. But this interval of good fenfe, as it may be fhort, is indeed but new. For I remember to have heard of a learned man, who, not long fince, formed a defign of giving a more correct edition of Spenfer; and, without doubt, would have performed it well; but he was diffuaded from his purpose by his friends, as beneath the dignity of a profeffor of the occult sciences. Yet thefe very friends, I fuppofe, would have thought it had added luftre to his high ftation, to have new-furbished out fome dull northern Chronicle, or dark Sibylline Ænigma. But let it not be thought that what is here faid infinuates any thing to the difcredit of Greek and Latin criticism. If the follies of particular men were fufficient to bring any branch of learning into difrepute, I don't know any that would ftand in a worse fituation than that for which I now apologize. For I hardly think there ever appeared, in any learned language, fo exe rable a heap of nonfenfe, under the name of commenVOL. 1. i

taries, as hath been lately given us on a certain fatiric poct, of the last age, by his editor and coadjutor.

I am fenfible how unjustly the very best claffical critics have been treated. It is faid, that our great philofopher spoke with much contempt of the two finest scholars of this age, Dr. Bentley and Bishop Hare, for fquabbling, as he expreffed it, about an old play-book; meaning, I fuppofe, Terence's comedies. But this ftory is unworthy of him; tho' well enough fuiting the fanatic turn of the wild writer that relates it; fuch cenfures are amongst the follies of men immoderately given over to one fcience, and ignorantly undervaluing all the rest. Thofe learned critics might, and perhaps did, laugh in their turn, (tho' ftill, fure, with the fame indecency and indifcretion) at that incomparable man, for wearing out a long life in poring through the telescope. Indeed, the weakneffes of fuch are to be mentioned with reverence. But who can bear, without indignation, the fashionable cant of every trifling writer, whofe infipidity paffes, with himself, for politenefs, for pretending to be shocked, forfooth, with the rude and favage air of vulgar critics; meaning fuch as Muretus, Scaliger, Cafaubon, Salmafius, Spanheim, Bentley. When, had it not been for the deathless labours of fuch as thefe, the western world, at the revival of letters, had foon fallen back again into a state of ignorance and barbarity as deplorable as that from which providence had just redeemed it.

To conclude with an obfervation of a fine writer and great philofopher of our own; which I would gladly bind, tho' with all honour, as a phylactery, on the brow of every awful grammarian, to teach him at once, the ufe, and limits of his art: WORDS ARE THE MONEY OF FOOLS, AND THE COUNTERS OF WISE MEN.

Mr. EDWARD CAPELL's

INTRODUCTION.

T is faid of the oftrich, that the drops her egg at ran

I dom, to be difpos' d of as chance pleases; either brought

to maturity by the fun's kindly warmth, or elfe crush'd by beafts and the feet of paffers-by: fuch, at least, is the account which naturalifts have given us of this extraordinary bird; and admitting it for a truth, fhe is in this a fit emblem of almost every great genius: they conceive and produce with ease those noble iffues of human understanding; but incubation, the dull work of putting them correctly upon paper, and afterwards publishing, is a task they cannot away with. If the original ftate of all fuch authors writings, even from Homer downward, could be enquired into and known, they would yield proof in abundance of the juftness of what is here afferted: but the author now before us fhall fuffice for them all; being at once the greatest inftance of genius in producing noble things, and of negligence in providing for them afterwards. This negligence indeed was fo great, and the condition in which his works are come down to us, fo very deformed, that it has, of late years, induced feveral gentlemen to make a revifion of them: but the publick feems not to be fatisfied with any of their endeavours: and the reafon of its difcontent will be manifeft, when the ftate of his old editions, and the methods that they have taken to amend them, are fully lay'd open, which is the first business of this Introduction.

Of thirty-fix plays which Shakespeare has left us, and which compose the collection that was afterwards fet out in folio, thirteen only were published in his life-time, that have much resemblance to those in the folio; these thirteen are-"Hamlet, First and Second Henry IV, Love's Labour's Loft, Merchant of Venice, Midfummer Night's Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, Richard II and III, Romeo and Juliet, Titus Andronicus, and Troilus and Creffida." Some others, that came out in the fame period, bear indeed the titles of—“ Henry V, King John, Merry Wives of Windfor, and (1) Taming of the Shrew;" but are no other than either firft draughts, or mutilated and perhaps furreptitious impreffions of those plays, but whether of the two is not eafy to determine :." King John" is certainly a first draught, and in two parts; and so much another play, that only one line of it is retained in the fecond: there is also a first draught of the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI," published in his life-time, under the following title="The whole Contention betweene the two famous Houfes, Lancafter and Yorke :" and to these plays, fix in number, may be added the first impreffion of "Romeo and Juliet," being a play of the same stamp : the date of all these quartos, and that of their feveral re-impreffions, may be feen in a table that follows the introduction. "Othello" came out

only one year before the folio; and is, in the main, the fame play that we have there: and this too is the cafe of the firft-mentioned thirteen; notwithstanding there are in many of them great variations, and particularly in " Hamlet, King Lear, Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet."

NOTE.

(1) This is meant of the first quarto edition of "The Taming of the Shrew;" for the fecond was printed from the folio. But the play in this first edition appears certainly to have been a fpurious one, from

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