16091

TILDEN FATICVS.

1.

This Edition of SHAKESPEARE is correctly printed from

the famous Edition 1753, by Dr. Hugh Blair.

THE

SCOTS EDITORS

P R E F A CE.

HE distinguished character of SHAKESPEARE as a dramatic writer, the great demand for his works among the learned and polite, and a laudable zeal for promoting home manufactures, were the principal motives for undertaking an edition of his works in Scotland,

Before we give an account of the method used in conducting this edition, it may not be improper to take some notice of our author's modern editors. Nor will it perhaps be a disagreeable entertainment to the reader, to see their sentiments of one another, in their own words.

s6 even

* Mr. Rowe (the first of these editors) was indeed a « wit (says Mr. Warburton ;) but so utterly unacquainted s with the whole business of criticism, that he did not

collate or consult the first editions of the work he “ undertook to publish."--" This gentleman (says Mr. “ Theobald) had abilities, and a sufficient knowledge of « his author, had but his industry been equal to his « talents."

The next editor was the universally-admired Mr. Pope; “ who, (says Mr. Warburton,) by the mere force of an

uncommon genius, without any particular study or profession of this art (criticism,] discharged the great

parts of it so well, as to make his edition the best « foundation for all further improvements. He sepa“ rated the genuine from the spurious plays; and, with Vol. I.

“ equal

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