were to be wifhed that all would endeavour to imitate his modefty, who have not been able to furpafs his knowledge. I can fay with great fincerity of all my predeceffors, what I hope will hereafter be said of me, that not one has left Shakespeare without improvement, nor is there one to whom I have not been indebted for affiftance and information. Whatever I have taken from them, it was my intention to refer to its original author, and it is certain, that what I have not given to another, I believed when I wrote it to be my own. In fome perhaps I have been anticipated; but if I am ever found to encroach upon the remarks of any other commentator, I am willing that the honour, be it more or less, fhould be transferred to the firft claimant, for his right, and his alone, ftands above difpute; the second can prove his pretenfions only to himself, nor can himself always diftinguish invention, with fufficient certainty, from recollection. They have all been treated by me with candour, which they have not been careful of obferving to one another. It is not eafy to discover from what cause the acrimony of a fcholiaft can naturally proceed. The fubjects to be difcuffed by him are of very small importance; they involve neither property nor liberty; nor favour the intereft of fect or party. The various readings of copies, and different interpretations of a passage, feem to be questions that might exercise the wit, without engaging the paffions. But, whether it be, that fmall things make mean men proud, and vanity catches fmall occafions; or that all con trariety trariety of opinion, even in thofe that can defend it no longer, makes proud men angry; there is often found in commentaries a fpontaneous ftrain of inyective and contempt, more eager and venomous than is vented by the most furious controvertist in politicks against those whom he is hired to defame. Perhaps the lightnefs of the matter may conduce to the vehemence of the agency; when the truth to be investigated is fo near to inexiftence, as to escape attention, its bulk is to be enlarged by rage and exclamation that to which all would be indifferent in its original state, may attract notice when the fate of a name is appended to it. A commentator has indeed great temptations to fupply by turbulence what he wants of dignity, to beat his little gold to a fpacious furface, to work that to foam which no art or diligence can exalt to fpirit. The notes which I have borrowed or written are either illuftrative, by which difficulties are explained; or judicial, by which faults and beauties are remarked; or emendatory, by which depravations are corrected. The explanations tranfcribed from others, if I do not fubjoin any other interpretation, I fuppofe commonly to be right, at least I intend by acquiefcence to confefs, that I have nothing better to propose. After the labours of all the editors, I found many paffages which appeared to me likely to obftruct the greater number of readers, and thought it my duty to facilitate [D. 3] facilitate their paffage. It is impoffible for an expofitor not to write too little for fome, and too much for others. He can only judge what is neceffary by his own experience; and how long foever he may deliberate, will at last explain many lines which the learned will think impoffible to be mistaken, and omit many for which the ignorant will want his help. These are cenfures merely relative, and must be quietly endured. I have endeavoured to be neither fuperfluously copious, nor fcrupulously reserved, and hope that I have made my author's meaning acceffible. to many, who before were frighted from perusing him, and contributed fomething to the publick, by diffufing innocent and rational pleasure, The complete explanation of an author not systematick and confequential, but defultory and vagrant, abounding in cafual allufions and light hints, is not to be expected from any single scholiast. All personal reflections, when names are fuppreffed, must be in a few years irrecoverably obliterated; and cuftoms, too minute to attract the notice of law, fuch as modes of drefs, formalities of converfation, rules of vifits, difpofition of furniture, and practices of ceremony, which naturally find places in familiar dialogue, are fo fugitive and unsubstantial, that they are not easily retained or recovered, What can be known will be collected by chance, from the receffes of obfcure and obfolete papers, perufed commonly with fome other view. Of this knowledge every man has fome, and none has much; but when an author has engaged the publick attention, those who can add any thing to his illustration, communicate their discoveries, and time produces what had eluded diligence. To time I have been obliged to refign many paffages, which, though I did not understand them, will perhaps hereafter be explained, having, I hope, illuftrated fome, which others have neglected or miftaken, fometimes by fhort remarks, or marginal directions, such as every editor has added at his will, and often by comments more laborious than the matter will feem to deferve; but that which is moft difficult is not always most important, and to an editor nothing is a trifle by which his author is obfcured. gave this part The poetical beauties or defects I have not been very diligent to observe. Some plays have more, and fome fewer judicial obfervations, not in proportion to their difference of merit, but because I of my defign to chance and to caprice. The reader, I believe, is feldom pleased to find his opinion anticipated; it is natural to delight more in what we find or make, than in what we receive. Judgment, like other faculties, is improved by practice, and its advancement is hindered by fubmiffion to dictatorial decifions, as the memory grows torpid by the use of a table-book. Some initiation is however neceffary; of all skill, part is infufed by precept, and part is obtained by habit; I have therefore fhewn fo much as may enable the candidate of criticifin to discover the reft. To the end of moft plays I have added fhort ftrictures, containing a general cenfure of faults, or praife of excellence; in which I know not how much I have concurred with the current opinion; but I have not, by any affectation of fingularity, deviated from it. Nothing is minutely and particularly examined, and therefore it is to be fuppofed, that in the plays which are, condemned there is much to be praised, and in these which are praised much to be condemned. The part of criticifin in which the whole fucceffion of editors has laboured with the greateft diligence, which has occafioned the most arrogant oftentation, and excited the keeneft acrimony, is the emendation of corrupted paffages, to which the publick attention having been first drawn by the violence of the contention between Pope and Theobald, has been continued by the perfecution, which, with a kind of confpiracy, has been fince raised against all the publifhers of Shakespeare. That many paffages have paffed in a state of de- › pravation through all the editions is indubitably certain; of these the restoration is only to be attempted by collation of copies, or fagacity of conjecture, The collator's province is fafe and eafy, the conjecturer's perilous and difficult. Yet as the greater part of the plays are extant only in one copy, the peril muft not be avoided, nor the difficulty refufed. Of the readings which this emulation of amendment has hitherto produced, fome from the labours of |