equally unskilful, who ftill multiplied errors; they were perhaps fometimes mutilated by the actors, for the fake of shortening the fpeeches; and were at last printed without correction of the press.

In this state 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 ancestors 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 author's works might appear like those 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 juftice be done him, by confeffing, that though he seems to have had no thought of corruption beyond the printer's errors, yet he has made many emendations, if they were not made before, which his fucceffors 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 felf-congratulations on the happiness of discovering

it.

As of the other editors, I have preserved the prefaces, I have likewise borrowed the author's life from

Rowe,

Rowe, though not written with much elegance or spirit; it relates however what is now to be known, and therefore deferves to pass 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, fhewed 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 restored many lines to their integrity; but, by a very compendious criticism, he rejected whatever he disliked, and thought more of amputation than of cure,

I know not why he is commended by Dr. Warburton for distinguishing the genuine from the fpurious 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 prefs 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 printers.

This was a work which Pope feems 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 dulness. 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 fuch his copioufnefs of language. Out of many readings poffible, he must be able to select that which beft fuits with the state, opinions, and modes of language prevailing in every age, and with his author's particular cast of thought, and turn of expreffion. Such must be his knowledge, and fuch his tafte. Conjectural criticism demands more than humanity poffeffes, and he that exercises it with most 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 whose 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 fo much offended, when he was found to have left any thing for others to do, that he passed the latter part of his life in a state of hostility with verbal criticism,

I have retained all his notes, that no fragment of fo 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 author, fo extensive that little can be added, and fo exact, that little can be difputed, every editor has an

interest

intereft to fupprefs, but that every reader would demand its infertion.

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

In his reports of copies and editions he is not to be trusted without examination. He fpeaks 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 rest only deviate from it by the printer's negligence. Whoever has any of the folios has all, excepting those diversities which mere reiteration of editions will produce. I collated them all at the beginning, but afterwards ufed only the first.

. Of his notes I have generally retained those which he retained himself in his second edition, except when they were confuted by fubfequent annotators, or were too minute to merit preservation. I have fometimes. adopted his restoration of a comma, without inferting the panegyrick in which he celebrated himself for his atchievement. The exuberant excrefcence of his

diction

diction I have often lopped, his triumphant exultas tations over Pope and Rowe I have fometimes fup. preffed, 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 faithlefs, thus petulant and oftentatious, by the good luck of having Pope for his enemy, has escaped, and escaped alone, with reputation, from this undertaking. So willingly does the world fupport those who folicit favour, against those who command reverence; and fo eafily is he praised, whom no man can envy.

Our author fell then into the hands of Sir Thomas Hanmer, the Oxford editor, a man, in my opinion, eminently qualified by nature for fuch ftudies. He had, what is the first requifite to emendatory criticism, that intuition by which the poet's intention is immediately discovered, and that dexterity of intellect which dispatches its work by the easiest means. He had undoubtedly read much; his acquaintance with customs, opinions, and traditions, feems to have been large; and he is often learned without fhew. He feldom paffes what he does not understand, without an attempt to find or to make a meaning, and fometimes haftily makes what a little more attention would have found. He is folicitous to reduce to grammar, what he could not be fure that his author intended to be grammatical. Shakespeare regarded more the feries of ideas, than of words; and his language,

not