could complain, that criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them, Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc remediis "laboratur. And indeed, where mere conjecture 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.

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 obfcure, 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 instruct him, have owned my ignorance. I might eafily have accumulated a mafs of feeming learning upon eafy fcenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that, where nothing was neceffary, nothing

has

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 of Shakespeare, and who defires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every› play from the first scene to the laft, with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy : is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged, let it difdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald and of Pope. Let him read on through bright-nefs and obfcurity, through integrity and corrup tion; let him preserve his comprehension of the dia logue and his interest in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased, 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 remotenefs neceffary for the comprehenfion of any great

3

great work in its full defign and its true proportions; a close approach fhews the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the whole is discerned no longer.

It is not very grateful to confider how little the fucceffion of editors has added to this authour'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 accumulate upon him; while the reading was yet not rectified, nor his allufions understood; yet then did Dryden pronounce "that Shakespeare was the man,

who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets,

"had the largest and most comprehenfive foul. All "the images of nature were still present to him, "and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily : "When he describes any thing, you more than fee "it, you feel it too. Those who accufe him to “have wanted learning, give him the greater com"mendation: he was naturally learned: he needed

not the spectacles of books to read nature; he "looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot

fay he is every where alike; were he fo, I fhould "do him injury to compare him with the greatest "of mankind. He is many times flat and infipid; "his comick wit degenerating into clenches, his fe"rious fwelling into bombaft. But he is always

great, when fome great occafion is presented to "him: No man can fay, he ever had a fit fubject " for

"for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high "above the rest of poets,

Quantum lenta folent inter viburna cupreffi."

It is to be lamented, that fuch a writer should want a commentary; that his language fhould become obfolete, or his fentiments obfcure. But it is vain to carry wishes beyond the condition of human things; that which must happen to all, has happened to Shakespeare, by accident and time; and more than has been suffered by any other writer fince the use of types, has been fuffered by him through his own negligence of fame, or perhaps by that fuperiority of mind, which despised its own performances, when it compared them with its powers, and judged those works unworthy to be preserved, which the criticks of following ages were to contend for the fame of restoring and explaining.

Among these candidates of inferiour fame, I am now to ftand the judgment of the publick; and with that I could confidently produce my commentary as equal to the encouragement which I have had the honour of receiving. Every work of this kind is by its nature deficient, and I fhould feel little folicitude about the fentence, were it to be pronounced only by the skilful and the learned.