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much inveteracy, that, not to difpute whether they fhould come from a chriftian, they leave it a queftion whether they could come from a man. I fhould be loth to doubt, as Quintus Serenus did in a like cafe:

Sive bomo, feu fimilis turpiffima beftia nobis
Vulnera dente dedit.

The indignation, perhaps, for being reprefented a blockhead, may be as ftrong in us, as it is in the ladies for a reflexion on their beauties. It is certain, I am indebted to him for fome flagrant civilities; and I fhall willingly devote a part of my life to the honeft endeavour of quitting fcores: with this exception however, that I will not return thofe civilities in his peculiar ftrain, but confine myself, at least, to the limits of common decency. I fhall ever think it better to want wit, than to want humanity: and impartial pofterity may, perhaps, be of my opinion.

But to return to my fubject, which now calls upon me to enquire into thofe caufes, to which the depravations of my author originally may be affigned. We are to confider him as a writer, of whom no authentick manufcript was left extant; as a writer, whofe pieces were difperfedly performed on the feveral Stages then in being. And it was the cuftom of those days for the poets to take a price of the players for the pieces they from time to time furnifhed; and thereupon it was fuppofed they had no farther right to print them without the confent of the players. As it was the interest of the companies to keep their plays unpublished, when any one fucceeded, there was a conteft betwixt the curiofity of the town, who demanded to fee it in print, and the policy of the ftagers, who wished to fecrete it within their own walls. Hence, many pieces were taken down in fhort-hand, and imperfectly copied by ear from a reprefentation: others were printed from piece-meal parts furrepti[H 4] tiously

tiously obtained from the theatres, uncorrect, and without the poet's knowledge. To fome of these causes we owe the train of blemishes, that deform those pieces which ftole fingly into the world in our author's life-time.

There are still other reafons, which may be fupposed to have affected the whole fet. When the players took upon them to publifh his works entire, every theatre was ranfacked to fupply the copy; and parts collected, which had gone through as many changes as performers, either from mutilations or additions made to them. Hence we derive many chafns and incoherences in the fenfe and matter. Scenes were frequently tranfpofed, and fhuffled out of their true place, to humour the caprice, or fup-, pofed convenience of fome particular actor. Hence much confufion and impropriety has attended, and embarraffed the bufinefs and fable. To thefe obvious caufs of corruption it must be added, that our author has lain under the difadvantage of having his errors propagated and multiplied by time: becaufe, for near a century, his works were published from the faulty copies, without the affiftance of any intelligent editor: which has been the cafe likewife of many a claffick writer.

The nature of any diftemper once found has generally been the immediate ftep to a cure, Shakespeare's cafe has in a great measure resembled that of a corrupt claffick; and, confequently, the method of cure was likewife to bear a refemblance. By what means, and with what fuccefs, this cure has been effected on ancient writers, is too well known, and needs no formal illuftration. The reputation, confequent on talks of that nature, invited me to attempt the method here; with this view, the hopes of restoring to the publick their greateft poet in his original purity: after having fo long lain in a condition that was a difgrace to common fenfe. To this end I have ven

tured

tured on a labour, that is the first affay of the kind on any modern author whatsoever. For the late edition of Milton by the learned Dr. Bentley is, in the main, a performance of another fpecies. It is plain, it was the intention of that great man rather to correct and pare off the excrefcencies of the Paradife Loft, in the manner that Tucca and Varius were. employed to criticise the Eneis of Virgil, than to reftore corrupted paffages. Hence, therefore, may be feen either the iniquity or ignorance of his cenfurers, who, from fome expreffions, would make us believe, the doctor every where gives us his corrections as the original text of the author; whereas the chief turn of his criticism is plainly to fhew the world, that if Milton did not write as he would have him, he ought to have wrote fo.

I thought proper to premise this obfervation to the readers, as it will fhew that the critick on Shakespeare is of a quite different kind. His genuine text is for the moft part religiously adhered to, and the numerous faults and blemishes, purely his own, are left as they were found. Nothing is altered, but what by the cleareft reafoning can be proved a corruption of the true text; and the alteration, a real reftoration of the genuine reading. Nay, fo ftrictly have I ftrove to give the true reading, though fometimes not to the advantage of my author, that I have been ridiculously ridiculed for it by thofe, who either were iniquitoufly for turning every thing to my difadvantage; or else were totally ignorant of the true duty of an editor.

The science of criticism, as far as it affects an editor, feems to be reduced to these three claffes; the emendation of corrupt paffages; the explanation of obfcure and difficult ones; and an enquiry into the beauties and defects of compofition. This work is principally confined to the two former parts: though there are some specimens interfperfed of the latter

kind, as feveral of the emendations were beft fupported, and feveral of the difficulties beft explained, by taking notice of the beauties and defects of the compofition peculiar to this immortal poet. But this was but occafional, and for the fake only of perfecting the two other parts, which were the proper objects of the editor's labour. The third lies open for every willing undertaker: and I fhall be pleased to fee it the employment of a mafterly pen.

It must neceffarily happen, as I have formerly obferved, that where the affiftance of manufcripts is wanting to fet an author's meaning right, and rescue him from thofe errors which have been tranfmitted down through a feries of incorrect editions, and a long intervention of time, many paffages must be defperate, and paft a cure; and their true fenfe irretrievable either to care or the fagacity of conjecture. But is there any reafon therefore to fay, that because all cannot be retrieved, all ought to be left desperate? We should fhew very little honefty, or wisdom, to play the tyrants with an author's text; to raze, alter, innovate, and overturn, at all adventures, and to the utter detriment of his fenfe and meaning: but to be fo very reserved and cautious, as to interpofe no relief or conjecture, where it manifeftly labours and cries out for affiftance, feems, on the other hand, an indolent abfurdity.

As there are very few pages in Shakespeare, upon which fome fufpicions of depravity do not reasonably arife, I have thought it my duty, in the first place, by a diligent and laborious collation, to take in the affiftances of all the older copies.

In his hiftorical plays, whenever our English chronicles, and in his tragedies, when Greek or Roman ftory could give any light, no pains have been omitted to fet paffages right, by comparing my author with his originals; for, as I have frequently observed, he

was

was a clofe and accurate copier where-ever his fable was founded on history.

Where-ever the author's fenfe is clear and discoverable (though, perchance, low and trivial) I have not by any innovation tampered with his text, out of an oftentation of endeavouring to make him speak better than the old copies have done.

Where, through all the former editions, a paffage has laboured under flat nonsense and invincible darknefs, if, by the addition or alteration of a letter or two, or a tranfpofition in the pointing, I have reftored to him both fenfe and fentiment; fuch corrections, I am perfuaded, will need no indulgence.

And whenever I have taken a greater latitude and liberty in amending, I have conftantly endeavoured to fupport my corrections and conjectures by parallel paffages and authorities from himself, the surest means of expounding any author whatsoever. Cette voie d'interpreter un autheur par lui-même est plus fure que tous les commentaires, fays a very learned French critick.

As to my notes (from which the common and learned readers of our author, I hope, will derive fome fatisfaction) I have endeavoured to give them a variety in fome proportion to their number. Whereever I have ventured at an emendation, a note is conftantly fubjoined to justify and affert the reason of it. Where I only offer a conjecture, and do not disturb the text, I fairly fet forth my grounds for fuch conjecture, and fubmit it to judgment. Some remarks are fpent in explaining paffages, where the wit or fatire depends on an obfcure point of hiftory: others, where allusions are to divinity, philofophy, or other branches of science. Some are added to fhew, where there is a fufpicion of our author having borrowed from the antients: others, to fhew where he is rallying his contemporaries; or where he himself is rallied by them. And fome are neceffarily thrown in, to explain

an

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