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fame, are willing to credit their encomiasts, and to spare the labour of contending with themselves.

It does not appear that Shakespeare thought his works worthy of pofterity, that he levied any ideal tribute upon future times, or had any further prospect than of present popularity and prefent profit. When his plays had been acted, his hope was at an end; he folicited no addition of honour from the reader. He therefore made no fcruple to repeat the fame jefts in many dialogues, or to entangle different plots by the fame knot of perplexity, which may be at least forgiven him, by those who recollect, that of Congreve's four comedies, two are concluded by a marriage in a mask, by a deception, which perhaps never happened, and which, whether likely or not, he did not invent.

So careless was this great poet of future fame, that, though he retired to ease and plenty, while he was yet little declined into the vale of years, before he could be difgufted with fatigue, or difabled by infirmity, he made no collection of his works, nor defired to rescue those that had been already published from the depravations that obfcured them, or fecure to the reft a better destiny, by giving them to the world in their genuine ftate.

Of the plays which bear the name of Shakespeare in the late editions, the greater part were not published till about feven years after his death, and the few which appeared in his life are apparently thrust into the world without the care of the authour, and therefore probably without his knowledge.

Of all the publishers, clandeftine or profeffed, their negligence and unfkilfulness has by the late revisers been sufficiently fhown. The faults of all are indeed numerous and grofs, and have not only corrupted paffages perhaps beyond

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recovery, but have brought others into suspicion, which are only obfcured by obfelete phrafeology, or by the writer's unskilfulness and affectation. To alter is more easy than to explain, and temerity is a more common quality than diligence. Those who faw that they must employ conjecture to a certain degree, were willing to indulge it a little further. Had the authour published his own works, we should have fat quietly down to disentangle his intricacies, and clear his obfurities; but now we tear what we cannot loose, and eject what we happen not to understand.

The faults are more than could have happened without the concurrence of many causes. The ftile of Shakespeare was in itself ungrammatical, perplexed and obfcure; his works were transcribed for the players by thofe who may be fupposed to have seldom understood them; they were transmitted by copiers equally unskilful, who ftill multiplied errours; they were perhaps fometimes mutilated by the actors, for the fake of fhortening the fpeeches; and were at laft printed without correction of the prefs.

In this ftate they remained, not as Dr. Warburton fuppofes, because they were unregarded, but because the editor's art was not yet applied to modern languages, and our anceftors were accustomed to fo much negligence of English printers, that they could very patiently endure it. At laft an edition was undertaken by Rowe, not because a poet was to be published by a poet, for Rowe seems to have thought very little on correction or explanation, but that our authour's works might appear like thofe of his fraternity, with the appendages of a life and recommendatory preface. Rowe has been clamorously blamed for not performing what he did not undertake, and it is time that justice be done him, by confeffing, that though he feems to have had no thought of

corruption beyond the printer's errours, yet he has made many emendations, if they were not made before, which his fuc effors have received without acknowledgment, and which, if they had produced them, would have filled pages and pages with cenfures of the ftupidity by which the faults were committed, with displays of the abfurdities which they involved, with oftentatious expofitions of the new reading, and self-congratulations on the happiness of discovering it.

Of Rowe, as of all the editors, I have preferved the preface, and have likewife retained the author's life, though not written with much elegance or spirit; it relates however what is now to be known, and therefore deserves to pafs through all fucceeding publications.

The nation had been for many years content enough with Mr. Rowe's performance, when Mr. Pope made them acquainted with the true ftate of Shakespeare's text, shewed that it was extremely corrupt, and gave reason to hope that there were means of reforming it. He collated the old copies, which none had thought to examine before, and reftored many lines to their integrity; but, by a very compendious criticism, he rejected whatever he difliked, and thought more of amputation than of cure.

I know not why he is commended by Dr. Warburton for distinguishing the genuine from the spurious plays. In this choice he exerted no judgment of his own; the plays which he received were given by Hemings and Condel, the first editors; and those which he rejected, though, according to the licentiousness of the press in those times, they were printed during Shakespeare's life, with his name, had been omitted by his friends, and were never added to his works before the edition of 1664, from which they were copied by the later writers.

This was a work which Pope seems to have thought unworthy of his abilities, being not able to fupprefs his contempt of the dull duty of an editor. He understood but half his undertaking. The duty of a collator is indeed dull, yet, like other tedious tasks, is very neceffary; but an emendatory critick would ill discharge his duty, without qualities very different from dulnefs. In perusing a corrupted piece, he must have before him all poffibilities of meaning, with all poffibilities of expreffion. Such must be his comprehenfion of thought, and fuh his copiousness of language. Out of many readings possible, he must be able to select that which best suits with the state, opinions, and modes of language prevailing in every age, and with his author's particular caft of thought, and turn of expreffion. Such muft be his knowledge, and fuch hfs tafte. Conjectural criticifm demands more than humanity poffeffes, and he that exercises it with moft praise has very frequent need of indulgence. Let us now be told no more of the dull duty of an editor.

Confidence is the common confequence of fuccefs. They whofe excellence of any kind has been loudly celebrated, are ready to conclude, that their powers are univerfal. Pope's edition fell below his own expectations, and he was so much offended, when he was found to have left any thing for others to do, that he past the latter part of his life in a state of hoftility with verbal criticfm.

I have retained all his notes, that no fragment of so great a writer may be loft; his preface, valuable alike for elegance of compofition and juftness of remark, and containing a general criticism on his authour, fo extenfive that little can be added, and fo exact, that little can be difputed, every editor has an intereft to fupprefs, but that every reader would demand its infertion.

Pope was fucceeded by Theobald, a man of narrow comprehenfion and small acquifitions, with no native and intrinfick splendour of genius, with little of the artificial light of learning, but zealous for minute accuracy, and not negligent in pursuing it. He collated the ancient copies, and rectified many errors. A man so anxiously scrupulous might have been expected to do more, but what little he did was commonly right.

In his report of copies and editions he is not to be trufted, without examination. He speaks fometimes indefinitely of copies, when he has only one. In his enumeration of editions, he mentions the two first folios as of high, and the third folio as of middle authority; but the truth is, that the first is equivalent to all others, and that the reit only deviate from it by the printer's negligence. Whoever has any of the folios has all, excepting 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 subsequent annotators, or were too minute to merit preservation. I have fometimes adopted his restoration of a comma, without inserting the panegyrick in which he celebrated himself for his atchievement. The exuberant excrefcence of his diction I have often lopped, his triumphant exultations over Pope and Rowe I have sometimes fuppreffed, and his contemptible oftentation I have frequently concealed; but I have in fome places fhewn him, as he would have fhewn himself, for the reader's diverfion, that the inflated emptiness of some notes may justify or excufe the contraction of the reft.

Theobald, thus weak and ignorant, thus mean and faithless, thus petulant and oftentatious, by the good luck of hav

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